The Execution of Jayne Cobb
by Mary Kroll
Summary: Luck finally runs out for Serenity's mercenary as he's sentenced to hang for murder. Will the crew save him in time? Do they want to?
1. Chapter 1

The Execution of one Jayne Cobb,

(Light Supper will be Served)

Janus moon was a decent enough settlement, as frontier living went. There were vast stretches of choking desert, but in the valleys of its two great rivers, life was green. Agriculture was a community affair, with all the homesteaders working common land together. Those who did not farm worked in one of the mills or factories. There was virtually no crime. It was a peaceful, civilized place and Malcolm Reynolds could not wait to quit it. He stood in the cargo bay of _Serenity_, anticipating the last straggling crew member.

Jayne strode up the ramp with a definite swagger in his step. As he approached, Mal and Simon could see not only the smile that threatened to halve his face but evidence of trauma of one kind or another all over his body. There was a tear in his pants exposing most of his thigh and his shirt hung in tatters from his waist like a gladiator's subligaculum. His neck was several shades of crimson up one side and down the other, speckled with rubescent marks and lines. There was a purple bruise on one cheekbone and a dried laceration over the other eye. Simon approached him, clinical senses at the ready, and reached a hand up to touch Jayne's face. Like the strike of a viper, Jayne clamped onto Simon's wrist, squeezing painfully. His grin was as evil as any the Devil had ever drawn on a man. "Don't you even think about fixin' these."

"Jayne, play nice with the doctor," Mal's voice had its firm, situation-defusing tone. "I thought you went out looking for pleasant company."

Jayne released Simon and turned, still smiling, to Mal. "Sure enough was. She was all manner of "pleasant" to me."

"You look like you've been mauled," Simon opined.

"That too."

An unknown voice bounced into the cargo bay. "Jayne? Jayne Cobb?"

"In here."

At the bottom of the ramp appeared a petite woman, bronze skinned with drowsy, leopard's eyes, dressed in plain but clean prairie-folk clothes, short black hair under a kerchief, carrying a cloth bundle. She walked confidently into the strange ship. "You ran out without your breakfast." Jayne met her halfway and gave her a kiss on the cheek, to which she responded with a firm bite to the side of his neck. Jayne growled appreciatively as he wrapped his arms around her, lifting her easily off the floor. She landed gracefully when he dropped her down. "I told you, big man like you needs his strength."

"Thanks, baby. span title=GoodbyeiZai jian./i/span" He took the bundle and gave her an echoing swat on the rear as she turned to leave.

With no more regard for the other men than she had had when she boarded, the woman left. "Tell me, Jayne, is that the vicious creature that tore you to teeny ribbons last night?" Mal asked.

"Part of it, yeah."

"She's the size of a duck. She's -what?- five foot nothing."

"I doubt she weighs more than forty kilos in her boots," Simon proffered.

"Yup. Hey, Mal, we gonna be back through here soon?"

"Depends if we get a return run on this delivery."

"Hmm, may have to make a separate trip then. I might just marry that little span title=demoniyoukai_/i/span_." He untied the bundle. "Ruttin' A, ham biscuits. I'll be in my bunk," and he was gone into the ship.

"There are times I think I'll never understand that man. Then I remember that I'm very grateful for that." Mal turned to the com on the ramp control panel. **beep** "Anyone who's not here better say so now."

_"Is Jayne on?" _Zoe asked from the bridge.

"Most of him."

_"Then we're all accounted for and ready to take off, sir._"

"Duly noted. Wash, if you would kindly remove your wife from your lap long enough to get my ship in the air, I'd be much obliged."

"_How does he always know? It's like he's got eyes-"_

"_Husband, the com's still open."_

"_Son of a-" _**beep**

*

The scream was loud and intense enough to jerk Simon from sleep instantly. He leapt from his bed, or attempted to, but the bed sheet ensnared his legs and he fell smartly onto his face. Extricating himself, he lunged across the hall, hurriedly sliding open the door to River's berth. She sat in the midst of rumpled covers, holding her pillows over her ears. The high-toned screaming continued unabated. 'If River's okay, who – Kaylee!' Simon sprinted through the ship and nearly collided with Mal as they both reached the engine room, hands over their ears.

Kaylee was on her knees, contorted in an odd twist to reach into the engine, desperately jerking on a part that would not budge. It was _Serenity_ who was screaming. Kneeling next to Kaylee, Simon clamped his hands over her ears.

"WHAT IS IT?" Mal had to shout to have even a chance of being heard over the keening.

"BEARING'S STUCK!" Kaylee shouted back. "I CAN'T GET IT LOOSE."

Mal grabbed a heavy pipe from a pile of metal scrap in the corner. "MOVE, KAYLEE!"

Kaylee lay back out of the way, knocking Simon back and under her, as the pipe swung past her close enough for her to feel it cut the air. It clanged off the engine. At Mal's third determined swing, the component shifted by a fraction and the vessel was quiet again, save for the panting of her captain, mechanic and medic. Simon took his hands away from Kaylee's ears. She pushed herself up and helped Simon to his feet, bashfully brushing off some grit that had gotten from her pajamas onto his bare chest. "Sorry 'bout that."

"HOLD- hold still, Kaylee." Simon took Kaylee's face gently in his hands and brushed the hair back from her forehead. A red line of blood was rolling from her hairline down her temple and cheekbone.

"Did I hit you, little Kaylee?" Mal asked with genuine concern as he tossed the pipe back onto the heap.

"Naw, Cap'n. I was asleep in my sling when that bearing jammed and my girltook to hollering. Scared me so bad I flipped right out and straight to the floor, bam-o. Must've landed on somethin'." Reflexively, she went to dab the wound with her fingertips, but Simon intercepted her greasy hand.

"It's not as bad as it looks. Facial lacs tend to bleed a lot. Can you come to the infirmary?"

"If we can power down the engine, sure."

Mal crouched down to look into the engine housing, as though he could actually identify the problem on his own. "What was it happened?"

"It was that gorram transfer case."

"I was under the impression you replaced that this morning."

"That **is** the replacement," she said, rather grimly. "Weren't but rebuilds to be had. Figured it had to be a sight better than ours. Guess I figured wrong."

Crossing to the com panel, Mal paused before pushing the button. "I ain't askin' you for silk purses, Kaylee. I know you did the most you could with what you had." **beep** "Wash?"

"_Wei_?"

"We have any course correction in the near future?"

"_Umm…nope. Course is straight, if not also narrow."_

"Good. We're shutting down the engine so Kaylee can work out a transfer case problem."

"_Is that what that noise was?"_

"Apparently." **beep**

"Shouldn't take more than an hour or three to put our slightly less span title=shoddyi_liezhi/i/__span _old one back on, and then we can limp-kick 'er to Cypress."

"That's fine. Go get that hole in your head fixed first."

"Aye aye, sir," Kaylee saluted exaggeratedly.

*

Simon turned on the pure white lights of the infirmary, glaring and harsh at that time of night, as Kaylee hopped onto the examination table. He gently cleaned away the trail of blood that had wormed its way down her face. The laceration itself received an antibiotic salve and a small dermal weave. Kaylee sat still throughout, wearing a look of placid contentment as Simon's soft and careful hands worked to heal her.

"There," he pronounced.

"You sure? Maybe you should kiss it better, ya know, just to be on the safe side?" If Kaylee had known how her smiles and the light in her eyes could melt Simon, she would never stop smiling.

Perhaps she did know. "Well, far be it from me to ignore sage folk wisdom in favor of highly-specialized medical science." He leaned in slowly, eyes almost closed, and breezed his lips against Kaylee's skin. Quick as a whip, Kaylee tilted her face up and caught Simon's lips in a warm kiss. Simon's mind was startled, but his body was not. He returned her kiss and tentatively probed her mouth with his tongue as her lips opened to him. Her arms moved around his neck and his wrapped around her.

"Ai-ya!" Kaylee gasped as she recoiled from Simon.

"What, what's wrong?" his mind whirled with possibilities and repercussions. She wasn't looking at him, though.

"Spot on my arm is real sore." Sure enough, there was a livid bump on the back of her upper arm. Inwardly relieved that for once he had not ruined their moment, Simon angled the overhead light and leaned in to study the offending nodule.

"It looks like you've got a little infection, maybe around a sliver or something. Sit tight," Simon grabbed his tweezers from a nearby tray. In mere seconds, he had hold of the foreign body and removed it deftly, though Kaylee did make a slight hiss. "Sorry." He held it up to the light and Kaylee peered at it too.

"Could be a metal filing. I'm all the time gettin' stuck with them."

"Probably." Simon dropped it into the rubbish bin, then cleaned and covered the bump, which was already quieting down properly. "All done. Is there anything else you need me to look at?"

Kaylee's sweet eyes smiled. "Not just now. Fit as a fiddle. Well, actually, the last two mornings I've felt a little sick, but I figured that was from the jerky Wash bought."

"It could well have been. I'll run some blood work to be sure." Simon drew a hypodermic from its assigned drawer. "Personally," he continued, to distract Kaylee, "I couldn't bring myself to eat something that was nailed to the side of a barn for a month."

Kaylee smiled her funny tight-lipped smile, "You Core folk, so highfalutin with your fancy refrigerated meat."

"What can I say, I've lead the life of Riley." The laughter faded and the silence was warm in the air as Simon slotted the vial of Kaylee's blood into the scanner. "Are you going right back to working on the engine?"

"Gotta. Can't have us floatin' around all night."

"Guess not. Would you like me to bring you some coffee?"

Simon almost blushed under Kaylee's bright smile, "Thank you, Simon, that'd be real sweet."

*

Half asleep and less than half dressed, Jayne lumbered onto the bridge. "What's all the span title=dog-humpingi_go tsao de_ /i/span ruckus?"

"Aw, did the mean ol' engine wake Diddums from his sweepy-time?" Wash teased.

"Which ear did I punch you in last time? I'm trying to keep 'em even." Jayne shook his fist affably in the pilot's direction as he flopped into the co-pilot's chair.

"C'mon in, Jayne. Make yourself at home. Can I get you a beverage, perhaps a canape?"

"span title="Shut up"iBi zuii//span," he yawned and casually scratched himself. "Where we headed anyway?"

Wash consulted the navigational display, "Hilmar settlement on Cypress moon. Ever been?"

"Cypress? Naw. Been to Crete, that's about spitting distance."

"That may be farther for some than for others," Wash crossed his arms over his puffed-up chest.

"That was a technical victory, Little Man."

"I still won."

"It was wind-assisted."

"We were in the cargo bay."

"Which reminds me," Mal said as he entered the bridge, "henceforward all contests involving the projection of bodily fluids are to take place *outside* the ship."

"You're just sore cuz you lost."

"Wha- I didn- you- I'd've had it, if not for all those salty crackers I'd just eaten. Besides, Wash only won on a technicality."

"I still won," the smiling pilot laced his fingers behind his head and propped his feet up on the console. "It's good to be the king."

*

_Serenity_ began her approach to the landing zone of Hilmar settlement. At each berth, people milled around, some moving cargo, some leaning on crates, talking or negotiating. A fair-sized cloud of dust rose around the ship as it descended the last few meters to the ground, but the people nearest by took no notice, other than to squint a little, and went about their way. The cargo ramp lowered and the crew began moving the assembled cartons down to the street. Much to their relief, the buyer had sent a large truck, which waited for them, its cranky engine backfiring occasionally. Mal gave the driver's hand a hearty shake and proceeded to try to charm his way into another job as Jayne, Zoe and the company men hefted the load onto the bed of the truck.

"Fortune smiles on us yet again, my loyal crew," he announced as he returned to the back of the truck, where the work was just concluded.

"And the first time was when?" Zoe asked with a smirk.

"See, its this kind of demoralizing pessimism that sucks the heart and soul right out of folk."

"And to think, if I applied myself, I could probably inspire mass suicide."

"Moving right past your sadistic spreading of gloom and doom, we got the return run. The planets hereabouts have a reciprocal set-up -- raw goods from one go to the other to get made into stuff and things, then shipped back."

"How long before the 'stuff and things' get here?"

"Couple hours, during which time I need to go to their office and sign off on some official rigamarole. Jayne, got a sidearm?" Jayne just gave him a 'stupid question' glare.

"You're with me. Zoe," he tossed her a large coin from the payment, "man told me there's a green market just down the strip. What say we get crazy and loose and have some vegetables at supper tonight, maybe some bread?"

"You sure know how to party, Captain," Zoe said dryly, but drolly smiled. She turned back into the ship to retrieve Wash. One benefit of marriage, she had found, was that you always had someone to drag along shopping with you.

Mal turned and began walking to the less dusty parts of town, where loading platforms gave way to stores and offices. Jayne fell in behind him, keeping a weather eye on the unconcerned citizens of the respectable-sized settlement. On reaching the correct building, the two men entered through the big front door and went directly to the upstairs offices.

Unseen by the men as they crossed the lobby, a signboard scrolled through the news of the planets of that sector. After the prices of commodities and reports of travel conditions, warrants began to flash across the screen, one with a sketch of a familiar face. "_Wanted on Janus: Jayne Cobb. Charge: Willful Murder. Convicted in absentia, sentenced to death. Do not approach. Contact Sheriff Gibson of Tiberinus."_


	2. Chapter 2

There was a jovial, familial atmosphere whenever the crew of _Serenity _assembled in the galley. There was a jovial, familial atmosphere every time but this time. Everyone was quiet and stood or sat stiffly. The only exception was Kaylee, who hid her face in her hands, elbows on the table. The palpable tension was densest near the captain, who stood at the head of the table, arms crossed, his mouth closed tightly. Last to arrive, Wash entered finally, all things navigational handled on the bridge, and seated himself next to his stoic wife quickly and without jibe, the tenor of the meeting evident from the corridor.

"I'm all for a person keeping hisself to hisself and not one for tellin' another man's business, but this will come to affect the entire crew, so it may be it's appropriate this time. Or would you like to tell them, Kaylee?"

Kaylee's head snapped up, her fair skin blotchy and her eyes rimmed in red. Most everyone looked at her before Mal continued.

"Little Kaylee's gotten herself pregnant. Doc confirmed it." It seemed that even the engine held its silence along with the crew. "I don't cotton to the idea of babes-in-arms in the engine room, but I can't see to dismissing you summarily."

Kaylee's face went back into her hands. She wished like hell that she could get mad, fly into a rage, punch, kick, and scream, like most folk. All she could seem to do was cry, and she was near to crying again. Soothing hands, Inara's, rubbed her back.

"Don't coddle her!" Mal snapped, his own ire rising through the veiling mantle of leadership. Instantly, Kaylee was on her feet, slamming her palms down on the thick planks of the table.

"I didn't do anything!"

It was not commonplace for Mal to actually raise his voice and that held the assembly even more transfixed. "How can you keep singin' that same sad song? Obviously you did!" Mal looked down at the hand that had clamped onto his wrist as Kaylee toppled her chair, and nearly Inara, to run from the mess.

"Sir," Zoe said evenly and calmly as she released him, "what's going on here?"

"Girl claims she hasn't dallied with anyone, which plainly isn't true." He looked to Simon, who gave a nod as his abbreviated medical testimony.

"You can't just kick her off, Mal" Inara stood and faced him.

"She's not my daughter, she's my mechanic. And a fat lot of good she'll do us with a baby on her tit while the engine flies apart."

Wash raised a hand, carefully interjecting himself into the fray. "This isn't especially suggestion-like or helpful necessarily, but.... whose is it?"

"Sure as _go se shit_ ain't mine," Mal huffed as he dropped rather heavily into his seat. All eyes turned to Simon, the most likely candidate. He knew full well the reason they were looking at him and chose to address them as a doctor, not a suspect.

"Kaylee maintains her...position. She hasn't identified a father nor would she consent to a paternity test."

"And you're sure about this?" Zoe asked.

"Blood tests were positive. Even without scans, which I can't do for want of proper equipment, the odds of two false positives in a row are slim at best."

Quiet again. Mal was just rising to leave when Jayne spoke. "I'll take her."

"What?!" filled the room in convergent voices.

"Jayne, you the man of the hour?"

Jayne glared at Mal, "Wouldn't've left Kaylee twisting like that if it were mine."

"Then you are on the verge of being seriously-"

"She can go to Newhall. You hire yourself another mechanic. My ma will take her in, take care of her til she's ready to drop."

"And then?"

"I take whatever money I got saved up, and I go home too."

"_Hoa le that's enough_, Jayne. I think I've heard enough."

"That's very..." Wash searched for the word to fit this bizarre turn of events, " 'nice'?"

"Shouldn't Kaylee have some say in this?" Inara asked, a stern rhetorical question.

"Did you formulate that plan just now?" Simon leaned forward, his voice flat, eyes hard. "Have you, by any chance, told Kaylee about your altruistic-" he stopped dead as a silver flash and blur of motion drove Jayne's large knife into the table, six inches or so from his chest. His hands raised instantly in a reflex of submission, Simon could see Zoe, sidearm drawn, to the left of them.

"Jayne," she warned.

Rocking the knife once, Jayne jerked it from the table and stuffed it back into the sheath on his hip. "This ain't a joke and I don't say things I don't mean. You all don't like it, you can _ha wo deh bang _suck my dick." His boots left the angry sound of his exit echoing.

*

The transfer case replacement had gone quickly enough with help from Wash, who gauged his levity with great diligence, making just enough jokes to draw a smile out of Kaylee, which had not been seen by anyone in days. Withdrawn now to her cabin, Kaylee was wedged between the head and the wall when River nimbled down the ladder with a tin mug in one hand. "Never fun, being sick every day." She handed Kaylee the mug and pulled a washcloth from the nearby rod to wipe her mouth. "Makes you want to stop eating altogether, but then you just get so hungry, so hungry you don't know if you can eat." Kaylee nodded and leaned her weight back against the bulkhead. She felt exhausted in body and spirit. Mornings were getting progressively more difficult and she was weak and dizzy most of the day. Leave aside the fact that the blood tests were wrong, but no one believed her. The captain hated her. Simon would not look her in the eye. Jayne stared at her funny. Everyone else was on eggshells whenever she was around. No one would treat her like Little Kaylee, trusty ship's mechanic, anymore. She was crying again before she even realized it. River bundled the soiled cloth the other way over and swabbed at her cheeks.

"I don't understand why you're so upset about this."

"Oh, River," she sobbed. Even River, the mind reader, her best friend, did not understand. Kaylee cried for her solitude.

*

"Now this is what I call a dream job," Wash proclaimed as he stepped onto the bridge, "except in my dream, you were naked and there was a white rhino in that corner over there where the couch used to be."

Zoe just smiled at her husband from the pilot's seat. "No cheerleaders this time?" She stood up just briefly so Wash could sit down, then settled herself on his lap, arms looped over his shoulders.

"I didn't feel the need for extra encouragement." He kissed her nose and enjoyed the little snorted laugh it always provoked. "Besides, they don't make skirts short enough or pom-poms pommy enough to take my attention off my honey-pumpkin-lover. However, an incredibly short skirt **on** my honey-pumpkin-lover-"

"Down, boy," and she kissed him with strength and tenderness.

"Oh, there's no talking him down now."

"How's Kaylee doing?"

"Except that." The giggle-fest of kisses now bankrupted, Wash wrapped his arms more tightly around Zoe's svelte waist and retired his head to her shoulder. "Kaylee sad is not something I thought I'd see for more than, like, 10 minutes in the whole stretch of recorded history. She just kept looking at me with these big eyes, like somebody'd kicked the cutest, tiniest puppy in the box.... It was like she was begging me to believe her," he said with a doleful sigh. He and Kaylee had been rather close friends, as thick as thieves, when the crew was small. But time and a wedding and an unrequited love had silently moved them apart. He had not even noticed when it had happened, but now Wash felt like he no longer had the province to delve too deeply into matters personal with Kaylee.

"Do you believe her?"

"It's sorta hard to argue with the test results."

"But she does."

"And yet she does," he echoed.

Zoe rested her cheek on Wash's brush-cut blond hair. Her man had a good heart, that he hurt for his friend, but it was Mal who rose in her thoughts. No one could begrudge a healthy young girl like Kaylee wanting a little physical affection after so much time sequestered in their beloved soup can. An impending baby could cultivate a great deal of wrath in those around it, but Mal's was different. Zoe thought back to the harshness of his voice as he publicly exposed this intensely personal situation. It seemed that it was Kaylee's protestations of innocence, more than her condition, that had his hackles up. Mal seemed betrayed and defensive, which lead him into anger. Zoe hugged Wash close.

*

Alone in the infirmary, Simon was startled when Mal knocked on the door jamb. Not surprised by the sound itself, but by the captain's preface. Typically, Mal would just say "Doc," and lunch into the subject at hand. Today, he waited for Simon to turn and address him.

"Yes, Captain?"

"We've managed to cobble together a decent pharmacy, right, Doc?"

"Subjectively speaking, yes."

"I mean to say, you're reasonably prepared for most sorts of ...medical....stuff."

"Is there something specific you wished to inquire about?"

"Alright. _Tsao gao _crap. What do we have here of an aborative nature?"

Stunned into silence by the blatant implications, Simon gaped slightly, wide eyed and speechless. When he regained mastery of his expression, he forwent the more obvious question of 'who'. "Do you plan to present this option to Kaylee or should I just slip it in her soup?"

Mal's face was stern, an expression that brooked no insubordination. Simon, for his part, knew not to push too hard, but was firm in his conviction and it showed in his posture. "Let's pretend you didn't just suggest I'd secretly poison a woman to kill her baby. Better for you that we did. Tell me whether or not you have anything fitting."

"There's nothing 'fitting' about this line of conversation."

"I can't figure how you've come under the misapprehension that answering me is somehow optional, but I have asked you a direct question, directly relating to your job here, so either you answer me directly or I'll have Jayne come in and look."

With his infirmary thus taken hostage, Simon relented. He sighed and pushed a hand through his black hair. "There are any number of compounds that are counter-indicated during pregnancy, but I would be wholly remiss as a physician to administer an unnecessary drug whose primary function may actually do harm to a healthy body. You might ask Inara-"

Mal held up a hand, stopping the words that were primed in Simon's mouth. "See, I can respect that answer." He crossed his arms and paused for a breath. "Is there anything we could conceivably stumble across in these parts that would serve the need without-"

"Respectfully, Captain," Simon enunciated his interruption very clearly, "I really don't plan to discuss this option any more unless Kaylee herself comes to me."

"Kaylee's already here," she announced from the doorway. Mal did not twitch, but he could not conceal the way some of the color drained from his face as he turned. Kaylee looked like she had been through a gauntlet, but above all else, she looked mad. "You ever think to invite a person to a conversation in their honor?"

"How long were you standing behind me there?"

"A lot longer than I would've liked."

"Kaylee, I was only-"

"Stuff it, Captain....sir." Angry as she may have been, and she was angry, Kaylee was still Kaylee. She stepped around Mal instead of shouldering him out of her way, which would have better suited her mood. "I came in for some doctoring."

"I'll just slide out then."

"Ya know what?" Kaylee fixed him with a flinty look in her green eyes. "Why don't you just stay? You seem terrible concerned about me and medicine today. So just sit your hinder up on the other bed and get comfy, how 'bout it." For emphasis, she pointed. She pointed until Mal resigned himself to leaning against the counter. The universe held very few women who could -or would even try to- order Malcolm Reynolds around, though some days it seemed they were all collected on the same ship. "_Xie xie _Thanks_._ Now then, Doctor Tam."

'Doctor Tam.' Simon felt admonished. "Are you still feeling nauseous?" he asked.

Kaylee nodded. "I don't even eat hardly but I can't stop throwing up. Dizzy too. And my belly's started to hurt," she rested a hand below her navel.

"Well, a certain amount of discomfort is to be expected."

"Not like this, even if it were."

"Alright, if you want to lay down on the bed..."

Markedly less spryly than she had a few days earlier, Kaylee got up on the adjustable table and carefully laid back. Sharply aware of the third presence in the room, Simon left Kaylee's threadbare shirt and flannel sleep pants in situ to preserve what modesty she had left. With measured pressure, Simon prodded Kaylee's abdomen with his fingertips, beginning near her ribcage and methodically working his way across, down, across, down. Simon watched his hands, Kaylee watched Simon.

"Simon. I know what you must be thinking, even if it ain't right, and I wouldn't blame you, but...but why do you have to be so cold to me anymore?"

Simon paused in his work and hazarded a look at her. Her every emotion was clear on her face and at times Simon envied her that sort of freedom. Now, he wished more than anything that he had not looked into those eyes so full of hurt.

"Kaylee, I'm sorry," Simon said in a voice that was soft, clear and honestly contrite. He broke his eyes from hers and began palpating again. "Maybe later, when we have more privacy-"

Kaylee gasped and her whole body twinged convulsively as Simon pressed the center of her lower abdomen, just above her pubic symphasis. "I'm sorry. I'll try to be as gentle as I can, but I need to feel your abdomen. Just a little longer." Kaylee nodded and bit her lower lip, staring hard at the ceiling and gripping the edges of the bed as Simon continued the examination. "It's okay, I'm done now," Simon said, to which Kaylee let out a deep, tremulous breath. "I'm concerned about the feel of your uterus. I'd like to do a pelvic exam."

"The feet-in-the-stirrups kinda exam?"

Simon nodded. "Captain, if you would kindly step out."

Kaylee froze Mal in place with a look. "Oh, no, he kindly don't." She swallowed down a swell of nervousness and shame. "In for a penny, in for a pound." She looked again to Simon. "If he wants to be in my business, let him be in my business."

Simon did not agree, but ultimately it was not his place to contradict her waiver of privacy.

Mal certainly did not agree, either. The last thing he wanted was to be a conscripted spectator to a lady-doctor interaction, but a thin spike of guilt had pinned him in place. Behind the anger in Kaylee's face was hurt and betrayal he had caused. He had caused it.

Under the veil of the wide paper drape Simon had provided, Kaylee slid out of her pajama bottoms and panties. Heat rose in her face, but Kaylee gathered her strength to feign detachment as she repositioned herself, naked from the waist down, feet at the level of the seated Simon's shoulders. She fought to hold back the implications of 'Doctor Tam' examining her so intimately while she still nurtured a hope that 'Simon' might someday do likewise. At least the captain could see nothing untoward from his vantage, she consoled herself. Again, she gripped the edges of the bed tightly as Simon wheeled a small tray next to the bed.

Mal cleared his throat as Simon prepared to begin. "Doc, I really don't..."

"She wants you to stay, Captain." Simon did not divert his attention any further. "There's going to be a little pressure." Simon gently inserted the chilly instrument. "A small injection now." He repositioned the bright lamp and examined her closely. "Kaylee, would you like something to help you relax?"

"Wouldn't say no." Kaylee's grip on the bed loosened slightly.

"Captain, would you go to the third drawer from the left -no, your left- and draw me three cc's of ketabarbitol?"

Mal carefully picked through the myriad vials and ampules and, finding the correct drug, loaded it into the hypodermic. "In the arm?"

"Yes, center mass of the bicep, thank you."

"Okay, Kaylee, little prick."

"Yeah, he's standing next to the bed," she sniped. Simon snorted an truncated laugh before he caught himself. Kaylee winced slightly as the needle pierced her skin, but in a matter of seconds she began to feel less tense. "Oh, I think I like this stuff." Kaylee's eyes closed and her head dropped to one shoulder.

"Whoa, doc, was that supposed to happen?" Mal asked, genuinely concerned he might have over-medicated her.

"It was a possibility," Simon said calmly. "It might not hurt if she were unconscious just now."


	3. Chapter 3

Weapons were spread on the galley table like a buffet of metal for Jayne. He needed distraction, to have his hands and mind occupied. Cleaning and maintenance provided him with a satisfying enough distraction that he could even ignore River, who sat at the head of the table, alternately brushing her hair and reading from an anthology of poetry. It was a good omen to see River's hair well-kempt; it meant that she was calm and tractable. That the damaged and often unpredictable girl was brushing and pinning back her own hair was a good sign indeed. "Hey. Girlie."

"My birth registry doesn't say "girlie" anywhere on it," she said dryly and licked a fingertip to turn the next page.

Jayne snorted. "River." She looked up at him, her face the visage of ennui. "Why don't we put that special brain of yours to good use and tell me what's goin' on in there, with Kaylee?"

River rolled her eyes. "That's privileged information, doctor-patient-telepath confidentiality."

"So you can read minds?"

"You think I can." The crooked smile River gave him made Jayne's skin crawl, though he gave her no outward indication of his discomfort. "I can give you impressions, that shouldn't be too unethical." She straightened slightly in her seat and drew a slow breath, like an orator preparing for a great speech. "Simon is surprised …and …concerned, but not overly so, at least that's what he tells himself."

"But Kaylee's gonna be okay?"

"She'll be fine now." River smiled to herself at the faint sigh of relief she heard from Jayne. "No babies, though."

*

"What, is something wrong?" Mal asked.

"You might say that." Simon took a pair of long-fingers from the tray and from underneath the drape he produced a small, white, squirming mass.

"_Yehsoo, je shr shuh muh lan dong shi_? Jesus, what is this garbage?" Face queered up in disgusted curiosity, Mal leaned a little closer. "It's a ... grub?"

"It's some kind of larva, yes." Simon turned the long-fingers back and forth. Holding the larva up to the light, he could see the outline of a full meal of blood in its belly.

"Doc, why are there larvas in Kaylee's...inside of Kaylee?"

"'Larvae,' and I wish I knew," Simon took an emisus basin and dropped the wriggling blob into it, "but her uterus is full of them."

The monitor on the wall beeped mindlessly along with Kaylee's steady heartbeat as Simon worked to remove the parasitic creatures from her womb. One at a time, he withdrew them with a careful instrument and discarded them in the slowly-filling basin. Some were laying loose in her swollen uterus, others were firmly attached to the life-giving tissue, feeding. Simon stopped counting after one hundred. Periodically, Mal cursed.

*

Jayne moved his chair closer to River's, his eyes intense with compounding emotions. "What's that supposed to mean?"

For a moment, River just looked at Jayne, her expression dour. "No baby now, no babies ever. There's too much scarring. The odds of zygote implantation are statistically insignificant." She watched her pronouncement reflect on Jayne's face as he tried to digest her words, not because he was confounded but because he understood. River reached one small hand toward him and laid it palm-up on the table. It would be presumptuous and even dangerous to touch Jayne, even out of sympathy. She had hurt him once and he had hurt her right back. Jayne looked from her hand to her deep brown eyes and slowly moved his hand to rest on top of hers. River wrapped her fingers around his. This was the first and likely the last time River Tam and Jayne Cobb would touch each other in kindness. "You'd gotten used to the idea. Grown accustomed to the thoughts of little wife and auburn-haired babies. I'm sorry you're sad, Jayne."

"Yeah, well, don't worry about it."

"I'm not." As quickly as it had begun, their aberrantly intimate moment had ended.

*

"There," Simon pronounced, "that's all of them."

"Ya know, Doc, I've seen a lot of weird ruttin' _go se_ shit in my life, but...this..." Mal gestured in the direction of the curved metal basin mounded up with writhing red-centered white intruders.

"I know, it ranks pretty high on my list, too." Simon moved the basin to the counter and snapped off his gloves. "I'm going to start Kaylee on a course of broad-spectrum antibiotics, then try to determine exactly what these are and how she came to have them." He turned back to the captain and leaned heavily on the counter. "Then comes the hard part."

"We have to apologize."

"Yeah."

In communal silence, the two men thought on the last few days, the way they had treated Kaylee, each on his own dubious skills with kind language.

Mal stared down at Kaylee's sleeping face, all but cherubic in her peace. "We are so humped."

*

There was no friendly truck waiting for the crew of _Serenity_ when they landed again on Janus. It would take several trips on the mule, but there was nothing for it. Jayne was grateful for the focus of the work and the drone of the vehicle as it rumbled to the warehouse and back. Mal had a lecture primed for him, Jayne just knew. Every sidelong glance the captain took in the mercenary's direction promised a high-handed dictum on his behavior, assumably relative to Kaylee and his declaration a few nights since. He was so deliberately fixated on his task that he never noticed the two men watching him from their position across the street, pistols strapped to their thighs.

The bulk of the day was gone before the last crate was deposited in the building and the short stack of wrinkled bills was deposited onto Mal's hand. Jayne and Zoe sat on the back of the mule, waiting, as professional banalities were also exchanged.

"Cobb?" one of the men yelled as he and his partner loped across the street. "Jayne Cobb?"

No sooner had Jayne turned his head but the two had each grabbed him by an arm and hauled him up.

"_Gun dan_! Fuck off!" Arms weary from shifting boxes all day and taken unawares, Jayne's wrists were in cuffs before he knew it.

"Jayne Cobb," the taller man began, "you are bound by law."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, gents," Mal stepped in front of them, but the shorter man shouldered him out of the way as they muscled Jayne between them. "That's my hired man you're absconding with."

"See this?" the taller man pointed to a pitted metal badge on his left chest. "This means we're the law and we'll abscond with anyone's hired man we see fit, especially when he beats a man to death in our town."

"I'm Deputy Lonnie Gibson," the younger of the two said with a little smile, as if he were leading a tour, "and that's Deputy Stacey Gibson". His brother glared at him in irritation, but did not falter a step.

"Mal, I ain't beat nobody to death here."

"I'll get it sorted, Jayne. When's his trial?"

"Trial already happened," Deputy Stacey answered. "You missed it. We convicted him and now he's gonna hang for killing Jeremiah Boone."

"Mal!" Jayne's face looked markedly less intimidating than usual. Wants and warrants he was accustomed to, but never a conviction and death sentence.

"There's gotta be something we can do here, fellas." The faster Mal walked behind them, the faster Deputy Stacey pulled at Jayne.

"You can talk to the sheriff about settling the bond price after we get him in a cell," Deputy Lonnie offered, again to his brother's obvious vexation.

Zoe had followed close behind, eyes tracking the street for more lawmen, but the way was clear. "Daring daylight escape or lawful obedience?" she asked surreptitiously as she came abreast of Mal.

"Lawful obedience, of course," Mal said clearly enough to be heard by the deputies out-pacing them. Then, sotto voce, "And if that doesn't work, go with the daring escape thing."

Iron bars over the windows signaled that they had reached the seat of local law. "Take him in and get started," Deputy Stacey ordered his brother. He turned to the captain and first mate, "You all stay out till we call you," before continuing on down the street. Zoe watched him walk to a nearby business while Mal peeped through the filmy windows as the younger deputy led Jayne over to a chair and sat at a desk stacked with papers. He turned to speak to the man seated at the grander desk at the far wall, a stocky fellow in a white suit, pure indulgent foolishness in this dry territory. Undoubtedly, this was the sheriff.

"Murder's believable," Zoe said quietly, eyes on the door the elder deputy had disappeared through.

"How do you mean?"

"As far as crimes Jayne would commit."

"You know of any he's not a likely candidate for?"

Zoe did not even need to consider her answer, "Rape." From the corner of her eye, she saw Mal tilt his head in consideration. "Said just the other day, 'the verse is full of willing women'."

"I'll buy that." Mal's eyes searched the front room of the sheriff's office, but it was otherwise unfortified, clearly not where Jayne would be held and so not fruitful for him.

"Here he comes and he's bringing company."

Mal turned to watch Deputy Stacey Gibson march toward them again, dragging an obviously discontented woman by the wrist. "I know her, or I've seen her before, at any rate. She came on the ship last time we were here, looking for Jayne."

"A working girl?"

"Like as not."

They held their peace as the deputy and the woman passed. Mal fixed his gaze through the murky glass again and strained to hear. The copper-skinned woman stood stiffly in the center of the room when the deputy released her, looking as much an arrested accomplice as anything.

"Somsri, Somsri, Somsri," the sheriff said as he levered his portly body from his chair. "How many times do you need to be told not to cover your head?"

Deputy Stacey snatched the topaz blue scarf from her head and let it flutter to the ground, where he swiveled his boot onto it. Somsri set her jaw and refused to react, though her nostrils flared.

The sheriff motioned to Deputy Lonnie, to which Lonnie hopped up from his desk and pulled Jayne standing. "Now, Somsri, we need you to do your bit as a good citizen and tell us, is this the man called Jayne Cobb?" The sheriff pointed a thick, tobacco-stained finger at Jayne, though all the while his eyes roamed sleazily over Somsri's body.

"That's the name he told me."

"And is he the one you saw engaged in fisticuffs with our late Jeremiah Boone?"

"Yes."

"There's a good girl. You can get on back to work now."

Jayne looked at Somsri, his eyes grabbing hers. The gaze between them veritably crackled. "At least you earned your thirty pieces of silver."

Her expression was hard, her answer half snarled, "I don't owe you anything."

"Oooh, feisty," the sheriff mocked, laughing. "Alright, you go on now, but be over at my place tonight around nine. I've got a hankering for a little sausage and clam." The elder deputy joined him in deriding the woman as she left, though the younger one was slower to laugh.

Surfeit with indignity, Somsri turned sharply and strode out, past the two outlanders on the porch, paying no more mind to Mal than she had the week prior on the deck of his ship, even though she walked directly between him and Zoe.

"Huh."

"Sir?"

The door opened and Deputy Stacey moved aside from it, "Y'all come in now."

Mal stepped into the office and stood before the larger desk, Zoe falling in one pace behind and to his left. "Captain Malcolm Reynolds," he extended his hand.

The sheriff's handshake was at once firm and bored, "Sheriff Taylor Gibson."

"_Hen gao xing ren shi ni."_ Pleasure to meet you.

"This fella kin to y'all?"

"He's in my employ presently and I'm hoping to keep it that way. Your deputy says we can bond him out. What's that gonna run?"

Sheriff Gibson chuckled and looked to Deputy Stacey, who smirked coolly.

"We didn't clap him up for stealing chickens, you know."

"Charge of murder, we're told."

"Not a charge, son, a conviction."

"That's where my brain gets fuzzified. You can't just go convicting a fella without letting him speak for himself."

Immediately, the sheriff's face dropped from a haughty, superior smile to an affronted scowl. Color rose in his cheeks, highlighting the blood vessels in his nose, clear testimony to any person too far away to smell the man's breath that the sheriff was a dedicated drinker. "_Qiao wo de_!" Watch me! He stood and flung open the door. "Get yourself an education in the law and come back tomorrow. It's the dinner hour and we're closing the office."

*

"This is some _gou pi_ bullshit," Mal groused as the sheriff's office door slammed behind them.

"Nothing like a nepotistic small town dictator to brighten up your day."

"Town like this, I bet they don't have three last names between them." Mal began to stride back in the direction of the mule, knowing without looking that Zoe would be behind him. "Ya know, my day was bright enough before Jayne went and got himself jammed up like this."

"And quite a jam it is. What's our plan of action?"

"Do what the man says, hunker down with the rules of law for these parts and see if we can't free Jayne in an above-board fashion. Simon's already doing a spate of medical research, should be no trouble shifting gears from doctor-speak to lawyer-speak."

"Plan B being a jail break?"

"Let me think on that a while."

Zoe regarded him silently as they mounted the mule. 'What was there to think about?'

*

Mal found Simon and Wash convened over a cortex screen in the bridge. "What's the good word?"

"Antidisestablishmentarianism," Wash said.

"What?"

"Antidisestablishmentarianism That's a good word. In fact, it's one of my favorites."

Mal sighed exasperatedly and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Simon, you got anything useful to say here?"

"I've been able to identify the parasites that infested Kaylee."

Mal looked at the doctor and, mouth open slightly, gestured back and forth between he and Wash. "What happened to that strict patient confidence you had a hard-on for last week?"

"That I _what_ last week?"

"Hey," Wash put a hand up for a chance to speak, "I may have finished school with a double first in Spitballs and Armpit Farts, but it didn't take a genius to figure out why Simon was up here looking for what he was looking for, what with Kaylee not vomiting all the time anymore and the enhanced quiet on-board."

"I'll make it a point never to doubt your deductive reasoning skills again." Mal returned to Simon, "What were those things?"

"Minavitas aferosi, literally 'steal a little life'. Like certain other animals, and in some instances plants, that were moved interplanetarily, they changed in their new environment, evolving within just a few generations . The original aferosi only laid their eggs beneath the host's skin. As they were carried unknowingly from one planet to the next, their survival modality changed. The current incarnation on Janus inject their eggs into the host's blood stream by means of a cannula-like appendage, which I mistook for a splinter when I removed it from Kaylee's arm. Once inside the host, the eggs travel to a sustaining organ, such as the uterus of a healthy, young female."

Wash had read all of this with Simon earlier, but it still made him a little queasy to think about eggs and larvae floating around inside a body. "You're gonna check Zoe too, right, Doc?"

"Directly. And bring it to Inara's attention."

"Do that," Mal affirmed. "Where are we on points legal?"

"Funny thing, that," Wash punched up some documents on his cortex screen. "Funny uh-oh, that is, not so much funny ha-ha."

"Apparently, the township of Tibernius has legal standing for in absentia convictions," Simon offered in the spirit of brevity as he monitored the captain's tremulous state of calm.

Mal crossed his arms and leaned against the bulkhead. "It was my understanding that a man has a right to confront his accuser under Alliance law," he nearly choked to say it.

"Normally, yes," Simon explained, "but during the early days of colonization and in certain circumstances during the war, exceptions were made. In every other case I looked at, the laws were all rescinded or redacted as soon as the needs of the provisional government changed. Whether through apathy, totalitarianism or a clerical oversight, the Rule of Absentia is still in effect on Janus."

"Given their skill at bulletin posting, I'm laying my chit on clerical oversight," Wash jumped in. "I mean, I had to dig back through almost fifteen years of _laja_ garbage to find a mention of those parasites. These _wuneug de ren_ lowest-class people haven't updated the alerts since we were all in short pants."

"Probably they figure everybody knows it by now," Mal speculated. "I'll be the last guy in line to hang medals for geniusness on anybody down there, I'll tell you that for nothing. Okay, I need to know the criminal law for the planet of Janus in general and the territory of Tibernius in particular, and I need to know it sharp-ish, so give me the highlights."

As Simon lectured, Wash pulled up more cortex pages for him to refer to, but Simon did not need them. The law was a great deal like medicine: complicated to practice, expensive to patronize and full of Latin.

"Criminal offenses are divided into two main classes, Petty and Great. Petty crimes, like minor theft or public drunkenness, are punishable by jail or a fine. What distinctifies Janus from most other municipalities is that it is largely up to the accused to determine which one. If a man had the money, he goes free. The funds go into an account for public works, to which the sheriff had unquestioned access. Felonious, or Great, offenses such as murder automatically draw a death sentence, but can also be forgiven with money, though it requires substantially more."

"How much in a 'more'?"

Wash mumbled an answer.

"How much?!"

*


	4. Chapter 4

Simon found River on the couch in the common area alongside the infirmary. She sat stiffly, her brows knitted in consternation, her fingers clenching the edge of a cushion. The conversation on the bridge had gotten loud toward the end and sound carried well along the corridor. One need not be psychic to pick up on the tension in the ship. With an ability Simon described to himself as 'receptive empathy', River must have been quite taxed.

"How are you feeling today, mei mei?"

"It's complicated. He's complicated."

"Which 'he'?"

"He has to see many people about many different ducks, but he always returns to his warren with visions of her. He hopes to pluck that dusky jewel from the wretched hands of wealthy men. Without, great leader. Within, doubting, resentful, insecure."

"Hey," Mal's voice resonated from the top of the stairs that led to the crew quarters, "I heard all that."

"That doesn't make it any less true," River shot back, then closed her eyes and gulped a breath. Simon watched her as she struggled, like a diver nearing the surface, unsure if there is enough life-giving air in her lungs to make it. Her hands trembled as she clasped them together. "One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, fifty-five..."

Simon recognized the sequence, the Fibonacci numbers, the golden spiral. "River, what are you doing?"

River took another deep breath and swallowed it down, as if she could swallow down the madness that rose to overtake her lucidity, to remove her from sense and propel her into the nebulous, confusing unreality that dominated many of her days. "Numbers. The numbers never change, cannot change, solid, predictable, grounding. The rules always apply. No exceptions. One is A, two is B, three is C, four is D." She took a breath and let is out slowly. "D. Desultory. Demented. Deranged. Defective. Dangerous." With each word and breath, River began to still, her focus returning to the world outside her fractionated mind.

"Delightful," Simon interjected.

River smiled at him and reached out to take his hand in hers. "Devoted. Determined. Deluded. "

"Definitely." Simon smiled at his sister and the genuine way his smile was reflected on her face. The River he had loved so dearly was still inside this jagged, dishallowed person and she was struggling for control. That she was able to consciously calm herself was amazing progress. Simon made a mental note to update the transcript of her care.

Mal stepped down into the common area. "We done talking about other people's business down here?"

"For now." River stood and approached the captain, waving him to bend down to her, and whispered conspiratorially in his ear, "Purple monkey dishwasher." Pole-axed but silent, Mal just stared at her as she nodded grimly and went off to her berth.

"Just when I think she's already beyond the pale."

"Actually, Captain, I think she's making some inroads to recovery."

Assessing Simon's placid expression and the sudden, new ease in his body language, it gave Mal something to consider about his most troublesome cargo. "Huh." He had no love for the trouble that ferrying the Tam siblings had bought him, but they had his hatred of a tyrannical government and its sadistic agents to ensure his allegiance to their fight.

*

Deputy Stacey seemed to have a genuine preference for pulling Jayne around by the elbow. In no position to affect much change in the matter, Jayne could only acquiesce and go where he was led. Jayne had seen the inside of more than a few jails in his time and even the occasional prison. Floorplans differed slightly from one to the next, but they were essentially the same, form following function. The Tiberinus jail had only three cells running along the left side of the room, each containing a basic bed with thin mattress affixed to the wall and a sink-toilet unit. The end cells also had a short bench attached to the exterior wall. None of them appeared to have been used very recently. Deputy Stacey marched Jayne down to the far end, nudged him inside and slid the door closed. Well-versed in the protocol, Jayne backed up a half-step, presenting his hands behind his back to the access opening and felt his handcuffs being removed.

"Meals are at seven, noon and five, so you've missed dinner already. Lights out at eight and don't touch the bars," the deputy intoned disinterestedly. "Gorram it," he growled, then yelled at the open door to the office area, "Lonnie, you're supposed to leave the key in the door when it's empty."

"Um, I think I have it in here. _Deng yi xia r._ (Wait a second)," came Lonnie's unsure voice.

"_Ma shong_!" (Hurry up) Stacey just glared at his brother as Lonnie came in and handed him the key. "I swear, Lonnie," he groused as he locked the prisoner away, "you're so stupid, it's a wonder you don't forget to wake up in the morning."

"Well, that's why I set the alarm," Lonnie answered innocently. Stacey just grunted and gave his brother a light shove towards the door.

*

Armed with a basic knowledge of the law of this land and a deepening resentment toward Jayne Cobb's inherent talent at causing chaos, Mal was waiting on the porch of the sheriff's office when the first deputy arrived to open shop for the day.

"Accused types hereabouts are entitled to one visitor, am I correct in understanding?" Mal asked as he followed the deputy inside.

"That's right." Deputy Lonnie unlocked the door separating the anteroom office from the cells and pointed, needlessly, towards the far end.

"Did you have a good time the other night, Jayne?"

"Course I did. A whole night to myself with coin in my pocket? I didn't know whether to shit or go blind."

"And this man they say you killed..."

"I got no independent recollection of him. Not like folk walk around wearing nametags and _go se_ shit. I was in a fight, sure, lots of fellas were, but everybody left under their own power."

"And you didn't beat on anyone bad enough for them to die?"

"Won't that kind of fight."

Mal paused the ruminate on Jayne's asseverations. Local law did not imbue Mal with the authority to examine the evidence used to convict Jayne, so there was little more than their word against his. In a situation such as that, 'they' usually won. "Here's the other thing naggin' at me. Why'd you go and answer your name like that? Gotta be the oldest trick in the book."

"Because last time I answered my name, a pretty whore gave me breakfast."

"Those boys out there don't look like biscuit-dispensing hussies to me."

"This ain't a productive area of conversation, Mal. How's about we change focus to something more solution-oriented, like getting me the ruttin' _diyu_ (hell) outta here? How much is it gonna cost to spring me?"

"More than we earn in a year."

"Net or gross?"

"_Shen-me_?" (What?)

"Gross take or the net profit?"

"Gross."

"_Wo cao_!" (Fuck me) Jayne retreated to the bench, scrubbing a hand through his short-cropped hair and down over his face. "What about Inara?"

There was a coldness is Mal's response, "What _about_ Inara?"

"A...," Jayne weighed his vocabulary carefully, "woman of independent means such as herself has gotta have a retirement fund she can dip into for exigent circumstances."

"I've called you a lotta things these past years, but 'exigent' wasn't one of them" Mal crossed his arms over his chest, his face stern. "Let Inara post your bail so you can piss off next time we touch down? Not much of an inducement."

Jayne stood again and faced Mal squarely, body close to the bars. "I don't mind bonded service, wouldn't be the first time, but my trustworthiness ain't the issue here. You're getting your panties in a wad, thinking about her layin' up under dandy men just to save my well-toned ass. Hell, maybe you're getting' off on it." From the flare of Mal's nostrils, Jayne saw that he had struck a nerve. It had become fairly clear to him that Mal had no interest in extending himself to help Jayne, so Jayne did not care a shred if he made Mal angry.

"Inara's business is her own. You want her money, you ask her. Oh wait, you can't. Seems you're only allowed one visitor and that was little ol' me." Mal approached the bars, close enough to Jayne to smell him. "Now, I've got a first mate, pilot, mechanic, medic and passenger all relying on me to keep us flying, fed, and furtive. Can't do that with you bringing hell to my doorstep every time I turn my back."

"You're just gonna leave me here?"

The answer was in Mal's silence, as he stood stalk-still with dour face.

"You do that and you're as good as killing me, Mal."

It bristled up Mal's spine, another accusation of murder from a potential victim who had damn well doomed himself. "I didn't kill that fellow last week, Jayne, you did. Heroing is one of the shortest-lived professions there is, mercenary's even shorter. Your number's just come up."

"If it was Zoe or the Shepherd got locked up without cause, they'd be home before supper got cold."

Mal's hard look took on a cast a skepticism at the assertion. "Know me so well, do you? Maybe you're just not that valuable to me."

Deputy Stacey was at his desk as Mal crossed the anteroom office. "_Yuo mei qian_?" (Do you have the money?)

"Not today. I leave him to your tender mercies. Gentlemen." With that, Mal strode out of the office and back to his ship.

*

The mid-morning sun cast long shadows across the flat ground of the landing zone as Zoe watched Mal approach _Serenity_. They had been in close company for some long time and through trials too distressing to tell, so Zoe felt she could read Mal as well as anyone living might. It was a long walk into town and back, a clue to her that he knew he would want time alone to think. Further, his gait and the set of his jaw told her that circumstances had not improved and had probably degenerated in the way that seemed emblematic of their luck. Zoe had hardly expected Mal to bring Jayne back with him that morning, but a small, senseless part of her had hoped. She met him at the bottom of the ramp where he had stopped. "We're not bailing him out?"

"Can't. Utterly, unequivocally can't."

"So on to Plan B, jail-break and derring-do."

"There's not going to be a Plan B, Zoe, not this time. The 'verse is holding Jayne's feet to the fire for this one."

"You've never been afraid to ride to the rescue before. Getting cowardly in your old age?" It was a little poke, a test of the thickness of Mal's calloused carapace.

Mal let it go. "Ain't about afraid. We can't afford to rouse rabble here. This back-and-forth-y transport gig, under-stimulating as it may be, is gonna give us some long-overdue fiscal stability and clients don't look kindly on those who blow up jails and release hardened criminals that the spirit moved them to put away. We've got many, many needs on this ship versus his one." Mal bent, scooped a stone from the hard-packed dust, and hurled it skittering across the ground. For a moment, he simply stared after it. "Admittedly, it's a pretty big one."

"Thought you had a higher standard than that for crew."

Images of betrayal assailed Mal's mind, memories of Jayne doing for himself at the expense of other, sins of which Zoe remained unaware. Loyalty was a commodity to the mercenary, a cheaply bought nobility. "This is his fate. And when precisely did you become a one-woman Jayne Cobb admiration society?"

"He's a good sort, for the sort his is. Hell, he was probably best man at your wedding."

"I ever tell you what a smart mouth you got?"

"Better a smart mouth than a dumb ass. When you were in trouble, he packed on a half-ton of steel and lead the charge." Leaving aside how late Jayne was to the rescue party, the statement was more true than not.

Mal unclenched the fist that had curled reflexively and willed himself to a calmer composition. Zoe was a wall when her mind was made up, immovable and insurmountable. "The decision has been made."

"So that's it for Jayne?"

"That's it."

"And Kaylee?"

"_Wei_, (hey) what in the name of _Tien_ (God) and sonny _Yesoo_ (Jesus) does this conversation have to do with Kaylee?"

"Jayne gets into trouble, you up and desert him. Kaylee has a problem, you go out of your way to embarrass her in front of the people she has to spend every hour of every day with. I heard a public humiliation, but I haven't heard a public apology yet."

Heat crept up Mal's neck and washed down his arms, prickling the flesh with goosebumps as his anger rose. Any man who jabbed at him like this would feel four hard knuckles in his mouth. It was the best way, sometimes the only way, Mal knew to purge himself of this fast-growing wrath. But Zoe was a woman, who should never be struck by a man, and Zoe was Zoe, who could wreck him without mussing her hair. Blue eyes locked to brown in a granitic stare as Mal spoke, his voice low but severe, "We're not going down that road. This conversation is over. Are we clear?"

"Abundantly," Zoe never dropped her gaze, "sir." She watched Mal as he stalked away into the belly of the ship and was engulfed by the shadows, a resolution crystallizing in her heart. She did not believe in the fate that befell a person regardless of how they act, but only on the fate that falls on them if they fail to act.

*

Simon stood waiting for Zoe in the cargo bay, dressed in the finest clothes he still owned. The uniform of his former station, now a disguise, was at once comforting and a bit foreign. It had been months since a starched collar had touched his neck or his feet had slid into personally-fitted shoes that were polished to a gleam. The layered finery felt a bit bulky now, like a suit of armor.

Confident that he looked the part, Simon focused his thoughts on acting the part. This assignment was more fitting than the one foisted upon him on Canton. There he was a doctor masquerading as a purchaser of mud. On Janus, he would be a doctor pretending to be a different doctor, the fictitious physician whose name appeared on the contrived identification card in his breast pocket. Simon appreciated the odds, so much more in his favor for this mission – press the local constabulary to let him review the autopsy report and, hopefully, ferret out some detail with which to clear Jayne of murder. Synchronously, Zoe would take on the role of detective.

"Looking sharp there, Doc," Zoe said, by way of announcing her arrival. The two briefly appraised each other, both suited up for duty, one in silk, the other in leather. Abreast, they strode down the ramp. "How are you feeling about this?"

"The first step is getting the local law to agree to the inquest. After that, it's just a matter of pathology."

"I thought you were a trauma surgeon."

"I _am_, but I also excelled at pathology. If there's evidence that's been overlooked or misinterpreted, I'll find it." Simon straighted the knot in his tie just so. "That assumes, of course, that Jayne didn't kill that man."

"Of course."

*

Invoking the right of inquest would turn out to be easier than either Zoe or Simon had anticipated. The sheriff, still enjoying lunch at his desk, seemed unconcerned by the stylish new interloper.

"I'd like to review that autopsy record, including all scans and pictures," Simon's voice was steady and sure.

"Can't," Sheriff Gibson obscenely sucked the last threads of meat from a rib bone.

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't give you records from an autopsy nobody did."

"You interred a murder victim without conducting an autopsy?" Simon was incredulous at the anarchical lack of protocol.

"Don't question me, son." Sheriff Gibson belched out one side of his mouth. "We still got Boone's body."

"It's in the walk-in at the pub," Lonnie blurted out from his desk in the corner.

"Hush, boy."

"May we ask why you've..." Zoe sieved through her mental lexicon for the right, official-sounding terms, "preserved the remains for more than a week?"

"Honoring the man's last wish to attend the hanging of the _hundun_ (bastard) that finally did him in."

Zoe and Simon looked at each other, a silent agreement that the sheriff could not have given a more queer answer if he had said the body would be the grand marshal of a parade.

Simon turned his cool gaze back to Sheriff Gibson, "In that case, it should go without saying that I'd like to perform an autopsy."

"You can autopsy all you like, won't help Cobb one tiny iota."

"He's gonna cut Jeremiah up?" Lonnie was leaning across his desk, reaching his neck to get as close to the conversation as possible without leaving his seat.

Sheriff Gibson did not even look in Deputy Lonnie's direction, just help up two fingers toward him. "_Bi zui_." (Shut up.) Capitulating instantly, Lonnie sat back and stared at his mess of paperwork.

"I got some truck with the idea of you desecrating one of our own-"

Simon's mouth was already open to protest.

"But seeing as how you've quoted the law chapter and verse, and seeing as how I'm the bulwark of order and justice for this province, I don't see where I have standing to object. If you'll come with me," he gestured condescendingly grandly towards the door, "we'll take you to our presiding doctor and get you your corpse."

As they left the jail, Zoe slipped off to one side. From the mouth of the alley, she could see the window of Jayne's cell, half a meter wide but only a hand high. He might have been looking out, or it may have been a shadow, but still Zoe held up a fist and made three motions in the air, 'hold position, reinforcements inbound.'

*


	5. Chapter 5

After the clear and obvious similarities between the Sheriff and the two deputies, one keen to be involved, the other sullenly withdrawn, it did not surprise Simon in the slightest that the town's only doctor had the same eyes and chin as the sheriff, to say nothing of the same last name. There was even a parity to the doctor's indignation.

"Who are you to come here and tell me I don't know a murder victim when I see one?" Doctor Gibson was not quite as heftly as his brother, but he had clearly not missed any meals and like the sheriff he was tailored in a fashion more refined than his surroundings.

"I can assure you, doctor, my presence here is in no way a commentary on your abilities. The employer of the condemned man has commissioned me to determine the veracity of his guilt as an impartial observer. I would be happy to extend you the professional courtesy of reviewing my findings." For the span of a breath, Simon thought, the resident doctor's eyes seemed to glaze over under the onslaught of ten-penny words.

"That's right, Drew," the sheriff put a meaty hand on Doc Gibson's shoulder and turned them away from the outsiders. His whisper was more harsh than it was quiet, "Look, just give him the body and let's get rid of them so we can get on to the hanging."

"Fine," Doc Gibson huffed back. Turning to Simon and feigning pleasantness as convincingly as bull with feathers glued to it might pretend to be a chicken, "Alright, Doctor Shonessy, let's get you set up with a place to work. I've got a few patients to see, then I can get the body to you in about two hours."

Simon's smile was just as fake, but far more debonair, "Thank you, doctor."

*

Zoe parted company with Simon as Doc Gibson led him to a room at the back of his practice. Sheriff Gibson, having successfully passed the nuisance on to his brother, lost interest and returned to his office, leaving Zoe with a pleasantly surprising amount of freedom with which to work.

Mal's reluctance to strain himself, his crew and resources to help Jayne was understandable and not unprecedented. Owing to his deep personal moral philosophy, circumstances usually saw him change course for deliverance, but Zoe could not trust that Mal would feel so motivated in time. A wise man once said, she remembered, that patience taken too far is cowardice and Jayne's execution was slated for the following day.

The best course of action for her to contribute to Jayne's potential redemption was to retrace his steps from that portentous night. What she hoped to uncover, she did not know and could only trust in herself that she would know the exculpatory facts when they came to light.

The crew of _Serenity_, minus her medic and passenger, began their evening more than a week earlier at a decent eatery, enjoying a proper meal and a round of un-watered beer on the advance payment of their newly acquired transport job. Wash had made allusions to a perfect way to end the evening, so he and Zoe excused themselves with a wink and a nod. Halfway back to the ship, Mal and Kaylee had caught up with them, having declined to join Jayne in his much-anticipated debauch.

The trouble now was that the name of a bar one had never visited does not root itself firmly into the memory. Zoe stood on the covered veranda of the cantina and scanned the sign fronts of the other businesses in the restaurant district, taking it on faith that one would leap out at her. 'Story's,' that was the place the waitress had directed Jayne to when he failed utterly in his attempts to entice her affections. Zoe ambled casually down the block, just another citizen walking down the street, and through the heavy windowless doors to Story's Place.

The whole place lacked windows, keeping prying eyes off the antics of folks who carried themselves as unimpugnably respectable the rest of the day. It was unremarkable, one of a hundred thousand similar providers of hard drinks and soft bodies throughout the 'verse – tables, bar, billiards, washrooms of terrifying feculence, yeasty yellow smells of beer and urine. A metal door like a portcullis guarded the bottom of the stairs at the back of the main room, more to keep the women above honest about the number of clients they took than to keep them safe. A clever publican could easily make rent on the commission the whores were forced to pay.

*

Simon examined the area the town's doctor had provided him to preform the autopsy. Leave aside the length of time since he had last worked with a cadaver, one un-dead organ smuggler notwithstanding, Simon was beginning to doubt. The room looked more like a decommissioned butcher shop than an unused surgical suite. A row of cabinets along one wall held only a scattering of random supplies, as if they had been picked over for a vastly superior purpose long ago. Spiders had adorned each corner, angle and crevice with haphazard webs. Dust crowded every visible surface, including the high, metal table, fitted with a drain pipe and still draped with a rust red stained sheet. 'Woebedtide these people,' thought Simon, 'that their only surgical option is a man whose operating table has a drain built into it.' He let out a little snort as he wadded up the sheet and began to wipe down the table and counters with it. 'The best medical advice I could give them would probably be 'don't get sick'.'

Doc Gibson tossed open the door, clearly still nettled by the intrusion of the well-groomed upstart. Behind him shuffled a lean teenage boy, shaggy black hair hanging over his almond eyes. "Doctor Shonessy, I thought maybe you'd like an assistant for your assize. This is Jin Takeda."

"Oh, thank you," Simon said in the same false courtesy. He tossed aside the sheet and extend his hand to the young man, who only looked randomly and disinterestedly around the room. After an awkward moment, Simon lowered his hand.

Doc Gibson snapped his fingers, "Oh, I forgot to tell you, he's deaf and dumb. Emphasis on the 'dumb'. Mostly he carries things. See if you can't keep him out of trouble while you're working in my office." He turned on his heel and was back through the door before his venom could settle in the air.

Simon sighed and ran one hand through his hair. He'd picked up odd bits of signed language working in the emergency department, but certainly not enough to instruct an ad hoc autopsy technician. Hurting for other options, he shook his hand in front of Jin's face to grab his attention. YOU WASH and he pointed all around the room. Jin cocked an annoyed look, patently typical of a teenage boy, but started towards the sink cabinet, where he produced a bucket half full of rags and several unmarked bottles. Simon tapped his shoulder, B-L-E-A-C-H ? Jin opened each bottle and sniffed his contents, passing the liquid with the correct stench to Simon. Simon took a rag and turned to the impromptu autopsy table as Jin began to fill a bucket from the hot tap.

Simon sighed. "I should have told them I was a piano player in a whorehouse."

*

There were bees in the engine room, a great milling swarm of insects with wings beating faster than the mind could credit. River had followed the noise from the galley, all interest in her tea lost to the curiosity. She crept on her toes, trying to sound like wind or grass. The buzz became less constant as she approached, more a string of sounds than one continuous noise. The sounds broke apart further as she reached the engine room door and they became words. Kaylee lay in her hammock, staring blankly at the engine housing, absently chewing at one suitably clean thumbnail. The bugs were in Kaylee's head now. Simon pulled them out of her belly and now they were in her brain. Different, though. These bugs were made of thought, impossible to extract and every bit as dangerous. There were thought bugs of Simon and Mal, but the largest colony belonged to Jayne, one minute making cruel jokes and the next minute swinging from his neck like a moribund pendant. The bugs crawled through "if only" and "now I'll never" and fed on "I wish."

"We can go to him," River offered without preamble. Kaylee jerked in her seat and the bugs fell away, silent now.

*

Zoe knocked on the door, and finding it unlocked, let herself in. Somsri glanced up from her book as she reclined incuriously on the bed. "Pay the bartender up front, honey. No discount for the girls."

"What's the rate for talking?" Zoe closed the door behind herself.

"Long as no one hires me, I suppose talking can be free." She tossed her book onto the scarred little bedside stand, to come to rest with an assortment of tools of her trade, prophylactics, lubricants, and an array of unmarked pills in unmarked bottles. "You'll be wanting to talk about your friend Cobb, I take it." Lighting a thin cigarette from the case at her elbow, Somsri took a long drag. "I don't know what you want me to say. I saw him beat the ever-loving _go se_ shit out of Boone, everybody did."

_One word, one blue word about someone's wife or mother or horse was all it took to start two men throwing drunken punches. Two turned into a few, swelled into a bunch and soon most everyone in the place was hurling or ducking, smashing or kicking. The waitresses and barback hovered in a corner, waiting for the row to blow itself out. Boone, the bartender-owner, on the other hand, launched himself into the fray, as keen to get in a few random licks as to defend his business. _

_Jayne Cobb was not very different in that respect. With no specific quarrel or agenda, he fought for the pure visceral joy of forcing another man's bones out of order with his fists. A hook here, a jab there, a careful redirection of momentum to knock one man into another, it was Jayne's second favorite way to work up a good sweat. _

_There were only a handful of rowdies still in the clash when Jayne and Boone were paired up by simple chance. There was no moment taken to size each other up or think about strategy, each fight bled into the next like the steps of a dance._

_Jayne leaned wide to dodge a haymaker and twisted, putting his weight behind a punch to the publican's stomach. Boone oofed out his air, but did not go down, wrapping his arms around Jayne's waist and trying to push the big man back and knock him down. Nearly faltering, Jayne thrust a foot back and braced himself, grabbing his opponent around the waist and flinging him up shoulder high, only to bring him crashing down onto a table top._

_This time, Boone took a blink to recover before he grabbed a chair and charged at Jayne, intent on splitting his skull from the top down. Not about to present his handsome face for such an assault, Jayne launched a jump-kick he had seen on an old chop-socky vid and had been salivating for the chance to try. Boone's paunch nearly hugged Jayne's big boot as it hit his midsection with enough force to bow his body forward. _

_The potbellied little man was collapsing to his knees when the constabulary burst through the doors. The remaining fighters, already losing steam, ceased in their thrashing, though a few swayed as they worked to stay upright. Threats of incarceration were made and a token few questions were asked. The fight was over and no one looked truly worse for the wear._

_Boone would die the following morning, muttering incoherently and struggling against those would tried to help him before finally swooning. The lawmen knew the face of the man who had beaten Boone and they knew that man would return._

"So Jayne was the last one seen scrappin' with the dead man."

"Logic follows he killed him."

"Logic being one of your highly specialized job skills?"

"You're not going to come into my room with no coin and talk to me like a common whore." Somsri was off her bed as if she might actually want a course of violence herself.

"What part of the equation is missing here?"

"You think I chose this life? I was an art teacher back on Boros. You see these?" Somsri tugged at her right ear, pointing at five narrow notches taken out of the cartilage and skin. "These are the original years on my contract and these," she pulled at her left ear, "are the years Gibson adds when he feels like it."

"Eight years on a travel bond?" Zoe almost could not fathom the high cost.

"Eight as of now. Who knows? Maybe the sheriff hears I was talking to you and has his _cusheng xai-jiao de xiang huo_ animal-fucking bastard sons take out another one."

The disgust on Zoe's face was clear and she did not try to contain it. "Why stay? You wouldn't be the first indentured to run off if you did."

"He's got the contract on my daughter, too. As long as I toe the line, she gets to stay in school and believe her mother's a waitress."

Feeling truly chastened, Zoe gave a small bow, "_Bao qian, zao le_." I'm sorry, that's terrible. She turned to go, but stopped with her hand on the doorknob. "Do you have the patience to entertain an idle curiosity?"

Somsri shrugged.

"What kind of client was Jayne?"

Somsri took the final, long drag from the cigarette and stubbed it out against bed-frame. "Clean."

*

The door from the office eeked open and a familiar figure slipped through sideways. Recognition propelled Jayne to his feet with a very unmanly sense of relief. Kaylee all but ran over to his cell.

"Jayne, you alright?"

"Pretty good, considering I'll piss when I can't whistle."

"I haven't heard anybody say that since my grandpa died."

"Was he hanged?"

"No."

"Then he ain't really relevant to my current situation, is he?" Jayne tried not to grit his teeth or sound too brisk with Kaylee. "How'd you get in here?"

"River faked a nervous collapse on the sidewalk in front of the deputies and I slipped in, quiet as a ghost."

"Take it from a body who knows, Little Kaylee, this ain't a good rock to get into trouble on."

"I know, Jayne. I just needed-" Kaylee's sunny disposition dimmed a measure as she stepped closer. Idlyly, she reached out to hold the bars.

"Don't touch 'em," Jayne warned. Stopping dead, Kaylee examined the fortifications of the cell. What had seemed at a distance to be a spiral of polishing marks on the metal were actually raised and sharpened helixes the full length of each bar. To grab the bars would painfully and prolifically lacerate even the most calloused hand.

"Always looking out for your friends. Don't worry, I won't let on. There's just a couple or three things I wanted to say, in case Mal can't-"

"Mal won't. We already hashed that out. Turns out I'm not a worthwhile investment for his little enterprise. Now," he kept on as she opened her mouth to protest in her captain's defense, "say what it was you came to say and get your _swai_ sexy little tail outta here."

"Oh, Jayne," Kaylee couldn't believe she was really going to have this conversation, but if she didn't hurry, she'd never have the chance. "I know you're not all bad. Definitely not *this* bad. You got a code and you never do hurt without cause. And you're such a good _xiao_ _ge ge _big brotherto me. I heard about what you said the other night. You stood up for me when nobody believed me. Even my own brothers wouldn't've done that. I mean, not that they would've ever taken credit for-"

" Kaylee." Jayne broke her ramble as it began to gain speed. It was her way, he knew, to talk without pause when she was upset, as if the constant stream of words could form a barrier around her and keep the pain at bay a little longer. "Do you think you could not be my _xiao_ _mei-mei _little sister… just for a second?" His voice grew softer as he spoke and Kaylee moved closer to him to hear.

"What do you mean?" she asked in the same hush.

Slowly, as he might approach a skittish animal, Jayne reached through the bars, even as they rasped the length of his forearm, drawing blood at the widest part. He gently cupped her cheek and focused his consciousness on that skin. His hands were roughened from the handle of a hammer and the grip of a gun, they had been all his life, and Kaylee's warm cheek felt like satin. It was as if her softness could pass into him, skin to skin, and soften his flesh the same way her spirit, despite his best efforts, had mollified his heart.

Her eyes held the aspect of confusion behind the thin veil of tears that had been suspended there since she first arrived. Jayne did not like the look of either. It was like smoky clouds blotting out the sun. He drew her face closer, as close to his own as he could without risking the bars, and mercifully she kissed him. Jayne's lips were strong against Kaylee's and he kissed her as if he were trying to breathe her in.

A raven-tressed head appeared through the door. "The curtain is down and they're striking the set. Time for our exit, downstage left," River said, calmly but curtly.

Kaylee could not look at Jayne as she broke away from him and darted out the door. Jayne could not look at the tears streaming down her face. He was no more keen to die than he had been an hour before, but if Kaywinnit Frye was the last woman he kissed in this life, it took some of the sting out of death.

River stuck her head back in and looked Jayne up and down. "The reports of your death have been greatly exaggerated."

"That's tomorrow, ya _kuang yi shagua _crazy little idiot," he said to the empty air.

River grabbed Kaylee's hand and pulled her along, past two unconscious deputies and out into the street.

"River, what did you do?!"

"They'll be okay. Achey, but okay." She dragged them into an alley and began to weave a hidden, convoluted path back to _Serenity_.

"Ain't that just gonna draw more heat?"

"Odds are in our favor. Two grown men won't admit being felled by a 50 kilo girl in a hand-me-down dress."

Kaylee ran silently behind her for a moment. "Yeah, we should be fine."

It was not long before the girls reached the lane that would take them directly to the docks. River skidded to a stop and Kaylee did likewise, though not nearly as agilely. They paused a moment for their labored breathing to slow and their hearts to stop pounding so thunderously. "Simon needs me. Be casual, don't draw undue attention. We'll see you for dinner."

"_Zhen tama yaomin_." Watch your back.

"_Dong ran_." Of course.

With that, the girls kissed each others' cheeks and diverged, one sprinting back the way they had come, the other ambling on with her fists jammed in her pockets, trying to appear inconspicuous.

*


	6. Chapter 6

River slipped into the room where she had felt Simon must be. It was almost like a homing instinct that led her to him, the sort of biological compulsion that moves animals thousands of miles from home, then thousands of miles back again. The remnants of gore and evidence of disuse were largely gone from the examination room, though a miasma hung on the air, tendrils of souls let go of their bodies too early. They drifted and swirled about like dust motes, threatening to settle on her. But Simon was there, Simon with his science and logic, exuding the tacit excitement of a professional challenge. She probably had not meant to startle him so, calling out his name. On the far side of the room, a dishy young man looked up from disinterestedly sweeping the floor.

"River, you're supposed to be on the ship. Who brought you here?"

"I brought myself. You need me."

"I might very well, but you can't be out walking around on your own like that." Simon thought to lower his voice, but glanced at Jin and remembered it was hardly necessary. "What if someone had seen you?"

"But I've been stuffed in your pocket for the last hundred days, cramped and caged. {I'm sorry, big brother} Dui bu qi, ge ge," River said softly and cast her eyes down. This never failed to move Simon. It was almost as powerful as her puppy-dog look.

Simon sighed. Even in her weakened state, River was still a deft hand at manipulation. "Okay, since you're here." He waved Jin over. "R-I-V-E-R," he spelled with his fingers, "this is Jin, he's being punished by being assigned to help me with the inquest. Or I am, it's hard say." River smiled, Jin nodded, and Simon ignored the light blush on his sister's cheeks. Simon checked his watch, well less than an hour before the body was supposed to be delivered to him and there was still much to do. Digging around in the drawers, he managed to find a broken pencil and a pad of paper, warped and wrinkled from having been wet, with water he could only hope.

"You're not ready," River announced.

"I'm ready," Simon corrected, "the room is not." He pointed from Jin to the paper, "I N-E-E-D," and began to write.

_A dozen bowls/basins_

_ladle_

_ruler/caliper_

_bolt cutters, or similar_

_a scale, if you can borrow one_

_the most precise saw you can find_

_large needle, heavy thread_

In the edge of Simon's vision, he saw Jin sign to River. "Specific explanations are forthcoming, the minutia is somewhat involved." More signs. "He always does what he thinks is best, all else aside, so you can't really blame him."

"River, there's no use in...," Simon looked from River to Jin, "You can hear every word I'm saying, can't you?"

Jin just shrugged and nodded his head to one side.

"But you _are _non-verbal?"

Nod.

"I don't understand. Why would you let people believe you're deaf?"

Jin rolled his eyes and sighed, clearly not interested in sharing his life story with a stranger who barely signed out, let alone could comprehend signs being made at him.

"Like a secret weapon," River offered. "Clever mother. 'People will talk around him like they wouldn't if they thought he could here. Might be useful'." River smiled softly at Jin's confused look and this time his face showed a hint of rosy color.

"Well, at least we can dispense with the time-consuming and embarrassing attempts at sign language. We need to get working. The body will be here soon. Even refrigerated, it's already more than a week postmortem."

"Rapid decomposition."

"Right. As it warms up, my time will decrease dramatically."

"Autolysis, decay, putrefaction, butyria, and diagenesis." A tightness pinched the skin around River's eyes.

Simon put a reassuring hand on her arm. "Mei mei, you don't have to do this."

"Wanna help." River took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Besides, you always forget the difference between 'putrification' and 'putrefaction'."

"Brat."

River darted her tongue out at Simon and snatched the list from his hands. He snatched it back from her and handed it to Jin. "Is there anything on there you don't understand?"

Jin turned the paper left and right, squinting dramatically at Simon's doctor handwriting, to River's amusement, but signed that he understood.

"Okay, I need you to get as much on the list as you can as quickly as you can. See if you can borrow what we need; it's not as if I have a per diem to spend here. River, I want you to wait here while I supervise the transport of the body." Simon turned back to the worktop to rip another piece sheet of paper from the pad. Turning back mere seconds later, he found himself alone in the exam room, River and Jin having slipped stealthily out the door. A surge of panic rose in Simon at the thought of River unattended in a strange place. He rushed out the door. The hallway was empty. Hurrying through the side door of the building, Simon could see no sign of either teen. His watch buzzed. If he wanted to supervise the moving of the cadaver to monitor for additional damage, he would have to go now. River's safety was an alarm going off in his mind, warring with a klaxon that was Jayne's life.

*

'Borrow' was not a term that applied to Jin Takeda, as River would quickly learn. Widely regarded as a harmless pest most of his life, Jin found that many sins were automatically forgiven for the poor deaf boy who did not know any better. There was hardly a shop in town from which he had not helped himself to something he wanted. As he had grown older, though, and apparently less cute, those moves had to be made in a more furtive manner. Being so thoroughly ignored made it natural for him to slip through the background or periphery without drawing any conscious notice.

Jin found, too, that his partner in pretty crime surpassed him handily in the skill of stealth. River made no sound as she walked, gliding over to a shelf of plastic tableware and casually relieving the shop of a short stack of bowls. When reaching for certain items, River would stop and wait, or move aside and look at something else. Jin watched avidly as she employed this thieves' sixth sense to avoid detection by wide margins.

All the while maintaining the affect of a nonchalant browser, River would look over and see Jin watching her. He would look away directly each time her eyes caught his, but not before a breath of a smile arced his lips. There was a sense of exhilaration that did not come from their lawlessness and River reveled in it, sure she could hear his heart begin to pound as keenly as she felt her own.

The list was growing progressively smaller, only one item to fetch. This would prove the most wily of their prey. Shopkeepers did not watch all of their inventory all of the time, but there was no way around how often their eyes were on their scales, whether measuring out bolts, barley or bacon.

There was one place, Jin communicated to River, where they might be able to get a hanging scale without compromising all of the day's effort. In the open marketplace, semi-permanent vendor stalls lined the street, many of them with scales readily accessible. There was no reason they should not be, it was not like people went about stealing scales. 'Go the other way around,' he indicated, 'up the alley. This girl is working alone. I'll distract her at the counter.'

True to his word, it took Jin only a moment to reign in the undivided attention of the farm family's teenage daughter. He signaled for pen and paper and she leaned in close to watch him write, smiling at him as she did, the hussy. River felt a flair of ...something, something new and bilious, yet unnamed, but her hands on the cool metal of the scale brought her back to focus on the task at hand. She lifted it deftly from its hook and ducked noiselessly behind the last row of shelves and along the alley.

*

The compact cloth bundle that had resided in Simon's jacket pocket was now unfurled on the worktop. On its inner face, narrow pockets snugly and neatly secured a carefully selected array of surgical implements . Scalpels, both straight and curved blades, forceps, long-fingers, scissors, and half a dozen hemostats, though the potential usefulness of the latter was dubious. There would be no bleeding veins, no spurting arteries to clamp in this patient, the heart having stopped pumping a week since.

Simon hung his jacket and vest behind the door, rolled up his pristine white sleeves and donned the full apron his sticky-fingered assistants had provided him. His reflection on the long glass doors of the standing cabinet looked at best like a high-end butcher. It was not entirely inappropriate, Simon thought as he pulled on the gloves, since a great many persons likened the cutting of dead bodies to butchery, only with a less favorable connotation. A thought of Jayne lept to mind, "I'm just sayin', gold." Simon could only hope this autopsy subject would be more cooperative.

Pen ready in one hand, Simon began with the external examination. Jeremiah Boone was a small man, gaunt in his limbs but with a protruding stomach. 'He has a face like a pound of tripe', Simon though subjectively. His eyes were jaundiced yellow, his teeth were worn and cracked from grinding, and his knuckles bore a web of overlapping scars, as likely from a long-held affinity for violence as a life of manual labor. His body was also no stranger to bruises. Most were in various stages of healing, but it was the darkest, freshest specimens that demanded Simon's attention. They were scattered about Boone's torso and abdomen, with no small percentage on his face. Simon rested his fist above a few of the clearer examples. The bruises were larger than his hand would have made, but the darker impression of knuckles was visible. He measured the length and width of each one carefully, nothing the placement and dimension of each on the artless paper homunculus beside the body. He would have to measure Jayne's hands if he could have access to him, or perhaps Jayne's work gloves back on _Serenity_.

*

"Hey," Jayne called to the deputy holding up a nearby wall. "'Sthere any way I could get something to write with?"

Deputy Stacey nodded and stepped out of view for a few seconds. He returned with a single sheet of ruled paper and an eraser-less pencil. "Writing up your will?"

"I'm guessing you've seen this before."

"The odd time or two." The deputy's voice was flat with professional detachment.

Jayne nodded his thanks and sat on the floor, using the wooden bench seat as his writing desk.

centeri"Last Will and Testiment

I, Jayne Adam Cobb, eldest son of Jay and Anne Cobb on Newhall, of sound enough mind and soon to be bloated and stinking body do hereby becw beqee leave the following:

Zoe - my guns, accept for Vera (I want her burried with me)

Everything else - you all can take what you want and sell the rest. Send that and any other money you find to my mother, her adress is on the letters in the box under my bunk. Tell her I died in a crash or something and that I went quick.

Sincerely,

Jayne Cobb

P.S.: Tell Simon to help himself to my "health magazines." He could use a refresher course in female anatomy./i/center

Jayne folded the page as neatly as he could and stared at it's plain white face. When the sun set tomorrow, this would be all that remained of him. 'That and a festering corpse', he thought.

Unbidden in the stillness of his cell, a line of music, a few words and a melody, trickled through his sorrow and he took up the pencil again. He and some unsavory contemporaries had been casing a loan office adjacent a theater in a city far too fine for their ilk when he had heard it through the common wall. It had seemed like fluffy nonsense years before, but now it had gravity. On the outside of the paper, as cleanly as he could, he wrote a codicil, "Remember me, but forget my fate". Jayne levered himself from the floor and handed his will to the deputy.

"Monday's a holiday, so the Clark of the Court won't be in to record this until Tuesday."

"I don't suppose I'll care by then," Jayne said grimly, but fixed Deputy Stacey with a look to remind him how utterly moronic the comment had been.

"Did you have any requests for your last meal?"

"Y'all got any decent steak around here?"

"Budget don't allow for beef for prisoners, but I know a place that fries up a mean chicken. Good biscuits, too. That's what I'd want."

"Yeah, alright," Jayne nodded. His stomach didn't seem particularly interested in what he was eating tomorrow, no more so than it had been for the protein rations and grain bars he had been given thus far.

*

Regardless of manner of death, the pathology professor informed the second-year medical students on their first day of class, every person ultimately perishes from the same cause, a lack of oxygen to the brain. That was why the professor, and by extension Doctor Simon Tam, preferred to autopsy the brain before the body cavity. Soft and vulnerable, filled with fragile vessels often no thicker than a thread, dependent on a thin shell of bone for protection, the brain was uniquely, disproportionately likely to be the herald of fatal trauma or disease.

Simon incised the scalp from ear to ear over the crown of the head and reflected it back over Boone's face, obscuring his surly countenance in a manner that would have been comical if it were not so ghoulish. With the fine-toothed electric saw -- Jin had truly exceeded Simon's disheartened expectations – Simon made the coronal cut around the skull, scrutinizing the depth of the cutting blade so not to damage the soft tissue inside with this handyman's tool. Severing the brain stem with a scalpel, Simon lifted the brain carefully from the skull and set it in a basin. The human brain looses structure quickly after death and a brain eight days post-mortem it required especially delicate handling. He bisected the brain into its hemispheres and dissected it into its lobes, cutting several slices from each to search for evidence of bleeding. There was none, no indication of bleeding from natural disease or external trauma. It was in turns a disappointment, a relief, and a frustration. Simon made a note on the paper, 'brain unremarkable.'

*

River's brain was awash in vibrant sensations. It was not the first time she experienced these feelings of lust and longing, demand and desire, but it was the first time in her new, changed life that these needs were her own. She and Jin had duteously collected every item on Simon's list, or an appropriate analog, and it had been thrilling. Skulking, slithering, darting, dodging, snatching, sneaking, and all the while catching snatches of smiles, flashes of glances. Their ill-gotten booty dropped off at the side door of the clinic, they knocked like rabbid pranksters and sprinted away, neither about to submit to the rule of Dr. Tam and his prissy, fussy, tidy ways. Jin led them to an eatery, his favorite, but instead of going in, he took her hand and led her down the cool shadows of the brick building, past a stack of crates, to a tiny little paradise of privacy.

The constant murmur of surrounding voices, like the supernumerary strains of a dissonant orchestra, faded into a single soft hum, a solitary chord that was Jin and River alone. The thoughts in her brain were simple and aligned in purpose, and River reveled in the way it suffused her with a feeling as thick and sweet as pudding. _'She reminds me of a deer, the way she moves and her big, brown eyes.'_ 'I like his smile.' _'She's a little weird.'_ 'He's just a little wicked.' '_If I try to kiss her, will she let me?_' 'He'd better kiss me now. {God} Tienna, please let him kiss me now.'

The soft, moist skin of hungry, nervous lips touched and melded, melted and moved together, and River's mind found an exalted silence. There was only her body and it had no noise of its own. Hands found faces, fingers wound into hair, chests, bellies and hips found their way against each other. It was golden and glorious, and the more River tasted of it, the more she wanted. She was finally coming to know the throbbing, burning hunger that drove everyone else, everyone who was still human inside.

Jin felt it, too. River was sure, and sure she would have known it if she were senseless. He wanted her, needed her, accepted her. His fire made River's that much more fierce in the caller shade of the alley.

*

Relinquishing the pen in favor of a scalpel again, Simon began the internal exam. He cut from each shoulder to the base of the sternum, then down to the pubic bone. With the skin opened like an unlaced bodice, Simon took the heavy poultry shears and began to sequentially crunch through the cartilage binding the breastbone to the ribcage. He declined to think on how the proper owner would react to this re-purposing.

Drawing back the flaps of the abdominal skin like thick curtains, Simon startled to find the cavity filled to capacity with blood. {Holy testicle Tuesday} Shensheng duh gaowhan,' he muttered to himself. Grabbing the large soup ladle and a bucket, Simon began to spoon out the excess blood. Scoop after scoop, it seemed as if it might continue indefinitely. By the time the abdominal cavity was drained down to a glaze of sluggish humour, the bucket contained an astounding two-and-a-quarter liters of blood, over half the volume of Boone's body. This was the cause of death, internal hypovolemia. The source of the bleeding remained a mystery, however.

Simon continued his investigation by examining the organs in situ, where they lay in the flayed body. He felt the surface of each organ thoroughly, checking for lacerations or edema. The liver was chirrotic, lumpy, pale and swollen, but intact. The spleen was also slightly enlarged and bedevillingly free of wounds. The liver and the spleen were the two organs most capable of unleashing such a life-sapping flood and both were fine. Sighing with resignation that his search for the elusive answer must continue, Simon began to dispatch the remaining organs and placed each into its own individual vessel. Lungs and heart were the first to be removed, weighed and opened for further examination. Again, the tissues yielded no clues. The lungs were dingy with tobacco and the arteries of the heart partially clogged with plaque, but neither finding was substantive. Stomach, liver, kidneys, bladder, coils of intestines large and small, all received similar treatment and yielded similar results. There was nothing to evidence Jayne's culpability but likewise there was nothing there to exonerate him.


	7. Chapter 7

{Bubbling-over thanks to Adverbia for her help with these scenes.}

There were two sides in opposition over the life, and death, of Jayne Cobb and it was time, Zoe felt, to educate herself on her adversaries. Thick tomes in a dusty hall of records would have provided a thorough and detailed chronicle of Tiberinus, but something more than dry history would be indispensable. To truly gauge the nature of the township and the {god clan} shen zu who ruled it, she would need to seek out deeper intelligence. In any habitat, be it a cluster of huts or a metropolis built to the sky, the best place to find such details were the seats of women, the centers for news and gossip.

The women of the town warmed readily to the pretty stranger with her cool brown eyes, and once one woman began to talk about the Gibsons, gossip came in torrents. They spoke of the rise of the founding patriarch, the scandals of each subsequent generation, the flagrant abuses of power, like the behavior of entitled children, and the state of family currently. The talk turned wicked on the topic of the doctor and sheriff. Even their physical appearance was not beyond the issue to the women in the salon - "all gut, no butt," said one, "Humpty Dumpty if he was perfectly flat on the back," another elaborated, to venomous laughter. A hint of sadness entered the room when the deputy sons were brought up, some of the older woman simply shaking their heads. With a careful ear, Zoe winnowed the likely facts from the colorful stories. All it cost her was the price of a manicure. She returned to the ship armed with new ammunition and ten shiny, cherry red nails.

*

Deep in the still-bloody abdominal cavity, an anomaly grabbed Simon's eye as he began to excise the spleen and pancreas. Clinging to the splenic artery was a patch of yellow fat with no proper business being there. Slowly and gingerly, Simon peeled the adipose tissue back from the artery. Staring him in the face was the answer he had been searching for, up to his elbows in a cadaver. A sense of relief poured over Simon, {Victory!} "Sheng li!"

*

Sat at the galley table alone, Mal ruminated on the current discords with his beleaguered crew. His mechanic was not speaking to him, owing to his having roundly embarrassed her in front of people with whom she was trapped in a tiny, flying metal box. His first mate was openly questioning and defying him, and Mal could almost see her respect for him draining away like the grains of an hourglass. His mercenary was going to hang for something he may or may not have done. This thought had to be weighed against all of the sins and felonies Mal had witnessed the man commit first-hand, usually with a hedonistic grin and unbridled enthusiasm. The price of Jayne's freedom was more than Mal could hope to pay, even if he felt inclined to, a condition not in evidence just then.

He was still idly etching the grain of the table with his thumbnail when Inara entered. Mal could not think of any way he had specifically, recently or overtly roused the Companion's ire, but surely she had been talking to Kaylee, getting more and more cross at him with each passing hour. "Inara," he said by way of an uninflected greeting, waiting for a response he could qualify.

"Mal."

'Mal'. Not 'Captain Reynolds'. At least they were not past that rubicon, again. Mal watched as Inara went about the small steps of making herself tea. There was a grace in her every movement, each reach and retrieve, the delicate way she put the lid on the kettle with barely a sound. It was like watching a prima ballerina, only with more sari and less tutu. There was tea in her shuttle, sure, but she often came to drink the pedestrian leaf in the galley to socialize with the crew. Slumming, Mal sometimes thought. She came to sit a seat away from him at the table while her tea steeped.

"Any news on the Jayne situation?"

"Nothing productive. Lawmen have him dead to rights." It was not the exact truth, but it stung less than opening the air to the implications that Mal was too poor, too selfish or too cowardly to free Jayne.

{That's terrible.}"Gou qiuan. Is there nothing that can be done?"

"Well..." The line of Mal's mouth squicked to one side as he debated how to begin the sentence. Allowing him time to collect himself, Inara left the table to collect her tea, resettling herself silently and waited. "There's no way, you'd ever...ya know...need... or want..."

Inara arched one perfectly sculpted eyebrow at the captain. He groaned and scrubbed his face with both hands.

"Jayne floated the suggestion of you buying him out, which is to say into bonded service. There," he blurted.

"Oh." Inara's eye were wide for the briefest second before she composed her features, through muscle memory born of her extensive training, and blew gently on her tea. "It's not something I've ever considered."

"Yeah, I knew it was {stupid} chun."

"It's not completely unheard of, a Companion traveling with a full-time bodyguard, especially so far into the ether. How much is the bail?" Inara took a sip from the simple mug...

"75,000."

...and nearly sprayed her tea into the air, a few droplets dribbling down her chin to be caught by dainty fingers. Mal grinned but squelched it quickly.

"75,000?"

"Uh-huh."

"Credit or platinum?"

"The cold, hard variety. Apropos, really."

Inara cleared her throat and took a more careful sip of her tea. "That's ... substantial. With the caliber and irregular frequency of my clientele presently, minus rent and expenses, I'd be holding that bond note for two or three incarnations. Leaving aside the fact that I don't have those sorts of funds at my immediate disposal."

"It's okay, {nevermind} bu yao jin, forget I brought it up." Inwardly, Mal was glad the suggestion was off the table. He had done his bit and raised the point. Jayne was no more dead than he had been three minutes ago and now Mal did not have to do that terrible math, how many smarmy elitists Inara would have to service to save Jayne's boorish life.

*

The natural time for the township of Tiberinus was a few hours behind the artificial day and night cycles aboard _Serenity_ and Jayne found himself awake well before dawn on what was scheduled to be his last day of life. The sky outside the narrow window was an ideal exemplar of darkness, what of it Jayne could see between the raises of the neighboring buildings. Stars beyond his ability to count flickered brightly, as if valiantly struggling against the coming sun. How many of these stars had he passed in his years of traveling, never giving a second thought to the planets they might have warmed, unless of course there was money to be made there. His had been a life lived close to the bone, ruthless and with singular purity of purpose.

A hard-scrabble life of manual labor had held little appeal for Jayne as a young man. At the first opportunity he could make, he connived passage on a freighter and was gone. Even still, he had not abandoned his responsibilities back on that dingy moon. Every time he had coin or credits to his name, he sent a portion home to his mother, first and foremost. Then it was time to enjoy himself. He had earned it, after all. There was nary a port he pulled into where there was not a new gun to buy, a new poison to imbibe or a new woman to bury himself in.

Ah, the women. There had been dozens, maybe a hundred. Some were barflies that liked the scent of danger on him, but most were prostitutes, an occupation that had always sat with Jayne just fine. He was kind to the women he hired, perhaps not a particularly generous lover, but he never did them any harm and he always paid the extra fee for a shower when the house had facilities. Blond, brunettes, redheads, it made him no never mind, as long as they had all the right parts and could fake a smile at the prospect of loving on him for as long as the money held out.

Outside the window, inky black gave way to slate gray, which in turn yielded to deepest blue, the first suggestions of color returning to the world. A heavy jingling of keys and the curmudgeonly hinges of the anteroom door drew Jayne back from the sky. Lonnie was the first deputy to arrive, as he had been the previous morning, going about the starting tasks of the day with a quiet contentment. Stacey would be in a little later and Sheriff Gibson not until after ten.

"You doin' okay?"

"Tol'able."

"Warm enough last night?"

"Yeah, it was fine."

"Good." A halt. "Meal schedule's different today, so no breakfast."

"Okay." There was a cast of discomfort to Deputy Lonnie's body language Jayne noticed, a frequent fidgeting and repeated resettling of his gaze. "There something you wanna say?" he asked after a long pause.

Lonnie just fidgeted more, picking at the design on his belt buckle, "I was wondering..." after a breath, he finally looked Jayne in the eye, "how did it feel when you killed Jeremiah?"

"It's still my considered opinion that I didn't."

"Oh," Lonnie sounded almost disappointed. "Well, you ever kill anybody else?"

Arching an eyebrow at Lonnie's newfound and morbid curiosity, Jayne leaned back against the wall. "When the situation called for it."

"Like what?" With no seats outside the cells, Lonnie unself-consciously sat lotus style on the floor, as if he were settling in for a story.

*

The frustrating, perplexing and very tardily rewarding autopsy had consumed the entire evening and part of the night, to say nothing of devouring much of Simon's strength. By and by, River had found her way back to him, having the decency to look properly chastised as he lectured her on the understood dangers of wandering unescorted in an unfamiliar place, especially one where they were already tallying enemies so quickly. It would be River, when they were safe home on iSerenity/i, who depleted the last of Simon's elan. She had accepted her evening medication with aplomb, seeming content and even inwardly pleased as she settled herself into bed. It was in the scant hours remaining of the morning that her terrors began -- horrible dreams of vivid vivisections, living people cut open and pulled apart, Kaylee, Simon, herself, and she thrashed to get away. Still a light sleeper from the dictates of his past life, Simon was with her almost immediately after her arm knocked against the shared wall of their berths and he heard the panicked gasping of his little sister through the gauzy membrane of sleep. Simon's hands on River initially exacerbated her panic and she struggled that much harder until her half-open but unseeing eyes eventually registered the honest, concerned, if haggard, face of her brother. It took over an hour to lull River back into a fitful sleep. Simon could only hold her and hope that the nightmares were done,if only for tonight.

Kaylee found Simon collapsed on the broken-in old sofa that was equidistant to the infirmary and the passenger dorms. He lay belly down, his face turned out, with one arm dragging on the floor as if he had been unceremoniously dropped there. For a moment, Kaylee just stood and watched him sleep, taking in the sight of the brilliant doctor and courageous defender, drooling slightly from the corner of his mouth. She could not help but smile at the way the mere sight of him warmed her heart, even as she tried to remind herself that she was cross with him.

Simon had not believed her. That was the most painful betrayal for Kaylee, that he chose his meters and instruments over a friend, over her. Then again, how could she blame him? Medicine was his native language. Still, he had compounded the hurt with abandonment, not speaking to Kaylee if he could avoid it, not even being in the same room if he could help it. Silence could be the most cruel punishment of all and it had cut Kaylee right to her heart. Although, Simon had begun to apologize, during her examination, putting it off so he could do it properly. Then Jayne was taken and there was no time for "I'm sorry" or "please forgive me" or "I was a fool." Still, all Kaylee wanted in that moment was to cover him with a blanket and brush the sleek black hair back from his temple to kiss him good-night. But Zoe had sent her to gather everyone together for a briefing before breakfast and Simon's input would probably be the most crucial.

Kaylee leaned down close to him, "Simon," to which he mumbled something patently incomprehensible. "Dr Tam," she said a little louder.

"Just cross-clamp the aorta, I'm going for a coffee."

"So much for your high patient care standards," Kaylee said very clearly.

"Wha-huh?" Simon struggled to right himself, trying to convince his body that 'up' was not in fact the direction he was facing, lest he wind up with deck plating imprinted on his nose and eye socket. "Kaylee," he scrubbed both hands over his face, "what time is it?"

"Almost breakfast and time to figure out what we're gonna do and how we're gonna do it."

Simon nodded as he fought against an enormous yawn and lost.

"Up late, huh?"

"The autopsy ran into overtime, then River..."

"Yeah. All that doctoring don't leave a lot of time for anything else...like personal...things."

"Kaylee," Simon scooted over slightly, hoping she would accept the silent invitation to sit next to him. Thankfully, she did, though not as closely as she would have before and Simon lamented the little space. It felt like a mile, that foot of threadbare upholstery. There was a distance between them now, a cold and vacuous space where their growing friendship had once flourished. "I'm ...I..." He looked at her and the view before him was dim, devoid of the smile that seemed to shine its own light on him. Simon had caused her to suffer and he knew it. There was no simply justification for his behavior towards her, even as self-preserving logic howled like a wolf at his door. He had been cast out from the light. What right did he even have to ask her to forgive him? "I'd like you to stop by the infirmary, later, when things settle down a little, when you have time, for a follow-up."

Kaylee had not thought she could feel much worse on Simon, but a hope she had not realized she had been fostering had just been crushed. "Of course, Doc. But I know you got all them parasites out the first time. You always take good care of me." A thread of quavering emotion touched her voice and Kaylee sealed her lips tight against it. He did not deserve it, did not deserve to hear her upset, to know he could affect her so.

It felt as if a fist has clenched around Simon's windpipe, but he held his face in schooled composure. If it was Kaylee's choice to treat each other as crewmates, as doctor and patient, he would have to find a way to learn to respect that. As badly as he wanted to profess his contrition, he opened his mouth and, "I was just so relieved at the outcome," came out.

When a man steps out onto the ice of a frozen river and it is strained beyond its limits, an unmistakable creaking, groaning noise preceeds his catastophic plunge into hypothermia. Even if he had never heard the sound before, he will know it instinctively the instant it reaches his ears. If someone had asked Simon, he would have sworn wholehearedly that he had heard such a sound as Kaylee's expression darkened into the lines of irritation and disappointment.

"Huh. Yeah, I bet you were really relieved. Which part was the most relief-making for you, that I wasn't knocked-up with some little backwater bastard or that Jayne wouldn't be the one to see me through it?" Kaylee crossed her arms over her chest and Simon's head dropped into his hands. "As long as you're feeling better, that's what counts," her voice was as hard and cold as the metal walls that encased them. Kaylee turned sharply on her heel, but Simon grabbed her wrist. She stared as his hand, surprised at his daring and the way his fingers gripped her tightly, not painfully but not allowing her to move. Their arms stretched out between them, as much holding them apart as bridging them together.

Simon stood and looked at Kaylee, his blue eyes dark and intense in the scant light. "I was relieved to have gotten rid of the infestation. I was relieved that you didn't develop an infection, and that this hadn't gone unnoticed and resulted in anemia, peritonitis or internal bleeding, any one of which could have been fatal. I'm relieved that you're going to be okay." Slowly, his fingers loosened and Kaylee's arm dropped to her side, though she did not move. "And, yes, I'm relieved that you won't have to depend on someone like Jayne for help."

"Someone like Jayne?"

There was that sound again. The ice had felt solid under his feet but it gave way again. It was his own damn fool fault for venturing out in the first place.

"You mean an honest, dirty, working-class type?"

Defeated, Simon rolled his eyes until his face tilted up to the ceiling. "Kaylee, that's not-"

"{Shut up"} Bi zui. Zoe wants everybody in the galley, neighborhood of now."

Kaylee stomped away, her flip-flops slapping the soles on her feet in self-righteous indignation. Simon sighed and followed a safe distance behind her.

*

Lonnie had been enrapt by Jayne's answers his questions, never interrupting and staring up with mooning eyes. It was like the hero-worship Jayne had tried to evade on Canton. Once, he would have thought that his scoundrelly exploits meant something, gave his life substance. Now, with his judgement so near at hand, he was forced to consider the legay he had created for him. Heavy thoughts, frightening thoughts, so Jayne distracted himself, while simultaneously refocusing the conversation, by asking Lonnie about himself and his family.

"Just the two boys?"

"Yea, me and Stacey. He's my big brother," Lonnie grinned to mention him.

"Can't say he's the nicest brother I've ever seen."

"Stacey? He's not so bad. I'll tell you a secret," Lonnie actually dropped his voice, as though they could be heard through half-meter thick walls of steel-reinforced stone, "Stacey never lets nobody else say nothin' bad to me. He says he can all he wants, 'cuz he's my brother."

Jayne snorted a little sound of concession and nodded. There was a strange similarity between Deputy Stacey's logic and a speech Jayne had given Maddie on the footrace home from school one day, trying to get there in time to explain the fight to his mother before the teacher waved her.

Jayne regarded Lonnie, a simple man to be sure, but in an inculpable, almost child-like way. He father and brother treated him like the lowest mongrel, but he always found some small thing to smile about.

The life of a deputy did not seem to suit either of the sheriff's sons. One was not well suited for the job, the other acted as if the job was not well suited to him, resentful and vexed by it. If a father had a good position and could give his sons jobs, it was not their place to be particular. Jayne wondered what path his life might have taken if his father had had one set skill or trade to share with him, instead of an unceasing procession of menial labor.

Lonnie joined Jayne in watching the sun begin to rise in the vertical shaft between the buildings outside. "I'm sorry we have to hang you." There was no sarcasm in his words, no derision or mockery.

"Yeah." Jayne did not take his eyes from the window. "Me too."

*

{Thanks also to all my loyal readers for you patience with inconsistent posting speed.}


	8. Chapter 8

This gathering of the crew was not compulsory -- only those who doubted Jayne's guilt, if only in this narrow circumstance, and were willing to throw their lot in for his deliverance. Zoe smiled to herself to see every available body, save one, at the galley table, some bleary-eyed but all attentive. Even River was there, looking deep in thought as her eyes focused targetedly on the table. The only person missing was the captain himself, who had made no bones about his position on the matter of Jayne and his ever-nearing date with destiny. Nevertheless, Mal haunted the adjacent corridor, where he thought he was out of Zoe's sight, listening. Zoe stood at the head of the table and looked around at her crewmates.

"To get right into the meat," Zoe began, "Jayne Cobb is set to hang today for the murder of a local man hereabouts. Now I hold some objection to that and, looking around, I see I'm not the only one." Around her, heads nodded and murmurs assented. "I spent some time on the ground yesterday, sponging up what I could about the folks that would rather kill a man than have to do a lot of paperwork. Lazy as pigs but not nearly as smart." With that, she apprised the crew of the more credible snips of intelligence she had acquired. Even still, it was hard to avoid getting into personalities and some details of a juicy nature regarding the ruling family did trickle in, "Lady of the house disappeared under curious circumstances a few years back. She was barely fifteen when she had eldest, had the younger one the following year."

"They start early around here," Wash said, suppressing a pre-breakfast yawn.

"If there's grass on the field, play ball." All eyes, and modestly shocked faces, turned to Simon, who looked surprised his own self. "Jayne would say... if he were here."

Zoe broke the spell of incredulity. "It's a little early to be invoking the man's spirit, Doctor. He's still using it." Bereft of explanation, Simon shrugged and shook his head mutely. Kaylee cut mean eyes at him, even while everyone else returned their attention to Zoe. In the corridor, Mal smirked and inched into the doorway. "Scuttlebutt tells that the younger boy, Lonnie, is the product of incest, his uncle's get," Zoe paused for the "eww"s she had expected.

"Pretty bad planet," River said sidelong to Simon.

"And by lucky happenstance, that brother is the same man they want Jayne to dance for killing."

Wash ruffled his feral hair, "What good fortune. Fifty men in that bar and Jayne goes and kills the sheriff's brother-in-law."

"The evidence doesn't support a conviction," Simon said. "Not that they bothered to look."

Zoe nodded. "They did him in on that woman's ID and I'd say her credibility runs to the debatable."

"How debatable?" Kaylee asked.

Feeling suddenly relevant, Mal spoke up, "She had the earmarks of a whore."

Kaylee fumed, "You just think every woman's a {dirty drunken whore} zang de tchenhwan slut, don't you?"

Unprepared for her angry outburst, Mal stood there with his mouth open as his brain scrambled for a defense. As happened often in his life, Zoe rescued him.

"No, honey. There were actual marks in her ears, notches. They do that in some places to set aside women for legal prostitution or to shame the ones who get caught on the game."

"They put notches in her ears?" Kaylee's mild horror was plain on her face, "You mean, like a slaughter hog?"

"See?" Mal's voice re-emerged, "I ain't the worst {bastard} hoodun out there'."

"No, not the worst," Kaylee conceded, then muttered acerbicly, "but you're right up there."

Zoe hid her amusement at Mal's discomfort, "Getting back on point, we need to formulate what we plan to do and how we plan to do it."

"We could bust him out," Kaylee declared.

"Who 'we' – you, me and Simon?"

"I will sit here with the engines idling courageously," Wash interjected gustily.

"Well, yeah. I mean, this ain't a skyplex."

"Honey, that ain't much of a rescue team. Simon's likely to shoot himself female, though at least he's pretty enough to find a husband. No offense, Doc."

"No, I, what? No." Simon forced out a short breath, "Leaving that aside, I need to present my findings to the authorities."

"The dead man tells you Jayne didn't do it?" Zoe asked.

"Incontrovertibly."

"Anyone giving odds on the sheriff not listening?" Mal asked from his position supporting the bulkhead.

Without a twinge of reaction, Zoe ignored Mal's question, rhetorical and inane, and forged ahead. "The best case here would be Simon shows the town doctor and sheriff what he's found and they overturn Jayne's conviction. All the same, anyone who's been on this boat more than ten minutes knows we haven't seen a best case scenario {since the last ice age} quan xin shi.

"Black mandrake sprang beneath the tree as it will where the seed of the hanged falls," River intoned fluidly, her voice as even and smooth as glass, "and in spring a new branch pierced his breast and flowered in green boutonnière perennial beneath his yellow grin."

"Mei mei, that's on point...sort of...but it's not very helpful." Simon reached out to lay his hand on hers, but River pulled her hand into her lap, looking up for the first time. Her eyes were clear and intense.

"No, helpful mei mei is the very point."

Simon opened his mouth to gently object, but Zoe forestalled him with a move of her hand. "What's on your mind for this, River?"

"Oh, I like where this is going," Mal snarked. "So River will make the plan and you all will carry out her every order like flying monkeys? Nice to see we've all had a visit from the Crazy Fairy last night."

When Zoe turned to Mal, her gaze was like flint, hard, cold and dark. "It was my understanding you weren't keen to be involved here."

"Don't mean I can't point out the gargantuan flaws in the planning."

"That's a higher level of participation than I was expecting, so if you would very kindly let us continue our conference, sir." There was no hiding the inflexibility of her order, couched as a request, even with its customary title of respect. Mal held her stare a moment, then prowled back the bridge.

"We're going to hear the particulars of River's plan before we decide, right?" Simon asked trepidatiously, which earned him a silent look of supreme irritation from his sister and a quiet scoff from Kaylee.

"Of course," Zoe answered flatly.

"It's like they say," Wash chipped in, "five heads are better than four."

"Who says that?" Simon asked.

"I did, just now."

'Oh yeah,' Zoe thought to herself, 'this is gonna be one for the history books.'

*

Jayne could just see the clock on the front wall of the office, so it struck him a bit odd when the deputies brought him a steaming plate of fried chicken and fixings at a quarter to eleven in the morning. The smell was divine, the ambrosial combination of spices, meat, and the sacred art of frying. There was no shame to be had by the biscuits or greens either. It was all Jayne could do to avoid drooling down his chin, transported for the briefest moments away from his place queued up for final judgement. "Ain't it more customary," he asked as the deputy handed him the tray through the wide slot in the door, "for a man's last supper to come at supper time?"

"Well, you see..." Lonnie scratched nervously at the back of his head, "we do it this way, so...um, on account of..."

Stacey gave a short, sharp roll of his eyes. "It's so you don't shit yourself as bad when you die," he said indurately. "We're the ones gotta despatch your body, you know. Bad enough without britches full o' shit."

"You're a delicate little flower, ain't ya," Jayne taunted, smoothly turning so his tray would be out of reach, just in case the nettled deputy decided to snatch it back and spare himself the disagreeable work ahead. "Too bad I can't ask for seconds," he gave Stacey a wink and sat down on the bed.

{Useless prick}"Feiren hunqui," Stacey groused and stalked away.

"You know what else they say happens?" Lonnie asked, the glint in his eye hinting at a fascinating factoid and his utter ignorance of its inappropriateness for his audience.

Jayne reckoned he knew where the mentally prepubescent young man was going and gave Lonnie his most lascivious grin, "You jizz your draw'rs," and sank his teeth into a chicken thigh, tearing the meat off with bestial relish. It gave Jayne a grin of satisfaction the way Lonnie blushed, giggling like a titmouse as he followed his brother out. The meat was tasty, Jayne had to admit, especially seasoned with spiteful irritation and baudy humor. It was like a meal on iSerenity/i, flustering Simon and trading good-natured barbs with Wash. Jayne lowered the nearly defleshed bone back to to the tray and swallowed his mouthful half-chewed. In an instant the flavor had gone out of his food and the hunger from his stomach, replaced by a cold, stoney realization.

*

Mal accosted Zoe as she entered the bridge, his color high and nostrils flaring as he stood inches from her. {Son of a drooling whore and a monkey!} "Liu kou shui de biaozi he houzi de erzi! You ever take to ordering me around my ship again-"

"You have my sworn word that I'll toe the line next time one of ours is being put to death."

Mal scoffed almost imperceptibly at her flippance. "I never thought I'd see you breaking orders, Zoe, especially not for such a {troublemaker} wenshen."

"You never actually ordered me inot/i to help the wenshen." Zoe gave away no reaction as Mal shifted his weight away from her. "And then you came to the briefing. A pang of conscience draw you in?"

"My conscience is just fine."

"I'm sure it is, though they say a man can mistake a short memory for a clear conscience."

"My conscience is clear because I have a long memory, a crystal recollection of everything Jayne is and everything he's done since he changed sides. That's why you don't see me putting my neck in the noose with him." Silence and stares. Mal ruminated on whether or not to tell Zoe of Jayne's cardinal sin. If she knew the whole truth, she would never risk kith and kin to save the man. She may well want to string him up herself.

Zoe's eyes never left Mal's. "I know what he did," she said plainly. "At Saint Lucy's."

Mal stood gobsmacked. "How?"

"River told me, as best she can. Jayne confirmed it on direct."

There had been a single, hard moment when River's metaphors and poetical non sequiturs had coalesced into a simple, awful truth. Then the moment in the crew corridor, with Jayne pinned to the bulkhead with Zoe's forearm across his throat. He had frothed at the onrush until she made her accusation. The shame that filled his eyes and the tiny way he answered "yes" punctured Zoe's rage. She released him and he kept himself scarce from her for a few days, no mean feat on a small ship.

Mal leaned back against the pilot's seat, arms crossed over his chest, and appraised Zoe. "He sells crewmates with less care than I've sold un-broke horses, and knowing all that you still want to gamble your life, and everyone else's, for ihim/i?"

"If River can forgive him and he and Simon can come to some understanding, then it's not my place to begrudge him. Besides, I'm only risking myself. Anybody else who wants to help does so of their own will."

"How pragmatic."

"There's still a spot open on the squad if you change your mind."

"I'll have to check my planner."

Not especially concerned with wether the captain was being sincere or sarcastic, Zoe exited the bridge, leaving Mal staring out the forward window across the prairie land that waited, ingonizant, to welcome the body of a man by turns devious and selfless, noble and untrustworthy, vulgar and sincere, but still crew.

*

"Okay," Jayne cleared his throat, face inclined to the plastered ceiling of his cell, "I know you and me ain't exactly close. We've sorta been on a need-to-know basis ever since...well, you know what happened. I know I don't hold to the rules too good. Hell, I once committed six deadly sins before lunch. I just gotta hope I've got enough grace in me to ask for one favor. If this is gonna be my last hour walking and breathing, I can kinda accept that, had to happen eventually. But don't have me die like this, tied up and being killed like some dumb animal. Let me go down fighting. I don't mean dyin' for a cause, like Mal's still trying to do, or anything like that. Let me fight, even if I don't stand a chance of winnin'. Please don't let them just kill me."

*

The plan was composed and everyone has their orders. The assignment for Wash and Kaylee rarely differed much before a job, caper, heist or rescue - make absolutely certain iSerenity/i was ready to fly fast and far the instant she was called upon. A certain electrical array would not hold up to any more great demands and needed replacing, so the pilot and mechanic sat amidst their tools next to an open access panel in the bridge floor.

It had been no little relief to Wash to see Kaylee begin to come back to herself and warm again to those around her, even if she still had full venom sacs for Mal and Simon. "Ya know, it's not like that was your first little pregnancy scare anyway," he said, not looking up from the hatch.

"What? What are you talking about?" Kaylee asked as she dug through the tangled-looking mass of wiring to pull up the suspect connector.

"Oh, nothing, nothing at all. I just seem to remember a certain mechanic jumping the bones of a certain pilot his first month on the job, then whispering to him those ominous words, the words which strike fear into the heart of even the most burly man, 'I'm late.'"

Kaylee snorted a little laugh, catching it behind her hand. "{Jesus} Yesoo, I'd forgot about that."

"Oh well that's a fine commentary on my sexual prowess," Wash did his best to look dejected.

Kaylee punched his bicep playfully, "Oh, it ain't like that. I put that all out of my mind when you set your cap for Zoe. Besides, we both just needed to scratch an itch."

"Didn't feel itchy to me."

"You're the worst." She stuck her tongue out at Wash and he stuck his right back out at her with a ipbblt/i. "Tell me something, though. You were in a right state just then. How many beers was it you had that day we made landfall?"

"Nineteen. That's how I rutted up my knee."

"Oh?" Kaylee smirked knowingly. "And how exactly did you do that?"

"I miscalculated the number of steps down into the galley."

"And how many steps are there?"

Wash cast his eyes down, "Three."

"And how many did you think there were?"

"Five." Wash hid his face in his hands as Kaylee snickered. "That's it, the shame is simply too great to bear!" Rising to his knees, Wash snatched a screwdriver from the toolkit and feigned thrusting it into this abdomen. With a great groan, he drew it across and collapsed onto the decking, twitching in agony. Kaylee just laughed, until her face was flushed and her eyes were set to water.

Suddenly not dead by sepuku, Wash propped himself up on one elbow and watched her for a moment. "Hey, Kaylee?"

"Yeah, Wash?"

"It's good to see you laughing again."

"Thanks, Wash."


	9. Chapter 9

Author's Note: To my loyal and patient readers, below you will find a modified reposting of chapter 9. Great thanks to Adverbia Jones for helping me find a significant continuity error before the upcoming posting of the final chapter. We return you to the program, already in progress.

{Smelly pussy!}"Co ji bai!" the sheriff spat through his teeth as his switched off his cortex, ridding himself of the message from the coffee-skinned spacer woman. The nerve, the gall, to think they could dictate to him. 'We've got evidence that clears Jayne Cobb,' she had said, 'and we'll be there directly to discuss it.' For his part, the sheriff did not give a good gorram what these off-worlders thought they had. They were not just going to waltz in and gainsay the law of Tiberinus, not when the man had been convicted fair and square. "Stacey!" he hollered. "Get your {ass} pigu in here!"

"Yeah, what?" Deputy Stacey came in to the office, his indifference obvious.

"Get your brother. You gotta man to hang."

Mild vexation replaced Stacey's apathy. He knew his job, loathsome as it was, and did not need to be told how to do it. "That's tonight."

"No," the sheriff all but snarled, "it's now."

The voices of the crew had faded in and out as River sat with them at the galley table, the sound ebbing and flowing like waves. The words had reached her from time to time, leaking into her contemplation. There was something she wanted, as badly as her fragmented spirit could remember ever wanting anything in her life. Thoughts around her swirled with the effort to attain their own desire and for a instant the current of their thoughts coalesced with hers in an epiphany . She could help them and help herself.

In the nebulous depths of her intangible being, something woke apurpose in River. It opened like the scallop shell, bearing forth Aphrodite. Love was foremost on River's mind, but it was the goddess Nike to whom she felt owed the most fealty. It would take no less than wings and a sword to see River to victory. Her designs were simple, but not without risk, and they hinged on a single opportunity. If the time slipped past, the chance would be closed to her forever and her life as she knew it, confined and disjointed, surrounded but alone, would be permanent, a world without end, whole unto herself. For a brief moment, she had known the silence and solace of a single other soul and the pain of the loss of that repose threatened. She shuddered at the thought and harnessed her mind back onto the path of her plan, the very dreaming of which gave her comfort.

The gallows of Tiberius were a further disappointment to Jayne. It was a sorry enough state to die bound and impotent, in full view of a curious public, but he was being made to do so on something that looked like cheap, modular scaffolding. He had watched the deputies erect it from the window of his cell, so unimpressed with the structure that he could tell himself it was not for him. Now, the two deputies stood on the main platform while Jayne fought to maintain absolute stillness on the tall, narrow prop in front of it. It sickened his stomach all the more to think that he may plainly fall over and die before the lawmen had to chance to kill him.

The thick rope scratched at Jayne's neck as he surveyed the crowd milling about in the square. Their interest was far from blood-thirsty, as he had expected. A number of the people looked disinterested, like they were standing in a long theater queue. The faces formed a blur of dusty mediocrity – more folk too lazy or stupid to leave their marginal existence for something better. The late afternoon sun was just beginning to angle low into Jayne's eyes when he caught a familiar figure surreptitiously picking a path through the throng of bodies. Kaylee reached the wooden sawhorses lined up end-to-end as a barricade and looked up at Jayne, fret and worry as plain on her honest face as could be.

Kaylee's presence touched off a tourbillion in Jayne's mind as he tried to reason out why she had come. Had she come to lend him moral support, to insure he was not alone amongst strangers when he died? Was there a daring rescue operation imminent? Was a desperate confession of carefully hidden feelings about to burst forth from her soft lips?

When all was said and done, the 'why' really did not matter. Jayne did not want Kaylee to see this death. He would jerk and kick, gasping and flailing, until he finally died and shat himself. If his neck didn't break and the whole thing took too long, the conscientious deputies might even yank down on his feet for a while.

"This ain't no death for a man," Jayne murmured to the hot breeze that rose from the paved street a dozen or so feet below him.

Mal squinted through the scope as he sighted along the slender barrel of the rifle. From his position on a roof twelve buildings away, Mal had an open and clear view of Jayne in the noose. "This is never gonna work."

"The beneficiary of this altruistic crusade would say that it is 'insane', which puts it firmly in my territory." Beside Mal, River stretched nonchalantly, like a bored ballerina. "I don't criticize your plans."

"The plan would be fine except that it violates several fundaments of reality."

"Reality is merely an illusion," River bent to touch her toes, her forehead almost against her knees, "albeit a persistent one."

"Not doing anything for my confidence here, little one."

Pressing her palms together, River reached her arms high above her head and arched her back. "Did you pack and load the ordnance according to my formula?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Have you verified the accuracy of the weapon?"

"Yes, but-"

"Then victory is certain."

"Be that as it may, you're missing one key feature to your brilliant strategy. No one can make this shot. Even Shepherd "Keep 'Em Guessing" Book couldn't shoot out a single strand of rope like you're callin' for." Mal watched River's total lack of concern as she gracefully reached one hand back to clasp an up-kicked ankle. She stretched the leg high behind her, leaning forward with one arm straight ahead like an arrow, and sighted the shot.

"Three degrees additional ascension and our place in heaven is assured."

"You're so gorram sure, you take the shot."

River stared at Mal as if he were slow and she was losing patience, which in fact she was.

"Right, right, the gun touching. Just testing you there."

"Trust the plan. Trust yourself." Suddenly, as if startled by a noise, River looked away. "I've got to go."

"Straight back to Simon, hear?"

"Message received, no reply." River darted fleetly away across the roof and down the emergency ladder.

"'Trust the plan'? I must be {as dumb as a wooden chicken} dai ruo mu ji, Mal mumbled as he raised the nose of the rifle three degrees.

Deputy Stacey adjusted the knot of the noose, pulling it under Jayne's left ear. This would help ensure the neck of condemned snapped cleanly the instant the rope went taunt, speeding up the entire process for the deputies who had to dispatch the body. Stacey's battered old truck waited a few yards behind the gallows, ready to cart off a corpse in place of its usual cargo of firewood or furniture. The deputy turned to face the crowd and held up a hand for silence. "Under righteous law of the moon of Janus," he began in a clear voice, "and the territory of Tiberinus, this man, Jayne Cobb, has been convicted of the willful, malicious murder of full citizen Jeremiah Boone and will hang from the neck until such time as he is dead." Stacey looked askance at Jayne, "You can make a statement now, if you want."

Two whole days locked up by himself and Jayne had not given a moment's thought to what he might say when this particular moment arrived. As with most things in his life, he was going to have to improvise. Drawing himself up straight, Jayne cleared his throat and spoke out over the heads of the assembly, "I am prepared to meet my maker. Don't know if my maker is prepared to meet me."

Time was running desperately short when Simon and Zoe finally tracked down the town's sheriff and doctor. The autocratic elder Gibsons were in the private dining room of an eatery at the end of the main street, seated before a lucheon absurdly large for two men. It was the sheriff's right, his reward, granted by the founding charter, that on the occasion of the exercise of supreme justice, he be provided a sumptuous -and oversized- meal as thanks from an appreciative populace. They burst in, unannounced and uninvited. "You've got to stop the execution," Simon demanded. Zoe took her position behind his shoulder, the silent enforcer.

"The only thing I gotta do," drawled the sherrif, who barely looks up from his plate, "is get some sauce for these ribs."

"Jayne Cobb did not kill that man. The autopsy fully exculpates him."

"What are you ranting about?" Doc Gibson snapped as he tossed a bone back onto the serving platter.

"The decedant had a ruptured splenic anuerysm."

"And?"

"'And?'!"

"Could've been ruptured in the fight. That Cobb's got arms like a spike-driver."

"This wasn't a laceration, it was a rupture and it happened at least a week ago."

"How do you figure that?" the sheriff asked, out of his depth in things medical but very certain that no outworlders would gainsay him as long as he had a breath left in his body.

"Had anyone bothered to perform an internal exam, they would have discovered a layer of incongruous adipose tissue covering the splenic artery near the pancreatic tail."

The doctor was equally peremptory, "In case you hadn't notice, Doctor Shonessy, Jeremiah had a pronounced gut. That means he had a great deal of fat in his body."

Simon was stalk-still as he processed this diagnosis. With a burning coldness in his gaze, he locked sharp blue eyes on Doctor Gibson. "Are you actually licensed to practice medicine? And if so, was it through a correspondence course? Or did you get the job with your inflated sense of self-worth and a barber-level understanding of the human body?" Both of the corpulent despots all but growled at the interposing dilettante. "The 'pronounced gut' was an abdomen distended with blood. The fat pad is clearly indicative of the body attempting to seal a small rupture on a pre-existing aneurysm. The size of it speaks to at least a week of intraabdominal bleeding."

"Meaning what exactly?"

"Meaning," Simon bit back his exasperation, "he died of natural causes entirely dissociated from the trauma of the fight."

"Well, then that's a downright shame," the saturnine sheriff leaned back in his chair and undid the buckle on his belt, "your man being innocent and all like that."

"What do you mean?" Zoe asked firmly, reminding the obesities of her presence.

"Seems to me like our com lines are down. Yup, I couldn't call over there if I wanted to." The sheriff smiled broadly with wicked self-satisfaction as beside him, the doctor chuckled derisively.

"We need to stop them."

"I don't know about 'we', son, but I hope you can run in them fancy shoes. Ma'am." The sheriff nodded to Zoe and casually retuned to his plate.

An instant of freezing disbelief held Zoe and Simon rooted, then they were gone out the door, racing full-tilt down the dirty street.

"We've got to get to him," Simon shouted with breath needed preciously for the mad pace they had set.

"{Wait a second}Dung ee hwar," Zoe grabbed Simon's sleeve and yanked him sideways, nearly toppling him. His arms whirled for balance as he corrected and followed. At the end of the last paved street, a large corral stretched for half a block, "Tiberinus Auction Yard." Several horses milled about, picking at sad bits of grass, but there was nary a buyer nor seller in sight. Without a word, Zoe began to climb the six foot high rail fence, her long legs a natural advantage. She swung down, startling the nearest horse. With gentle hands and a steady eye, she brought the animal to bear, taking it by the halter. "Can you ride?"

The next stage in the new plan quite clear, Simon ran to the gate, relieved to find it latched but unlocked. "I have an excellent seat."

"That may be, but can you ride?"

"Yes." Simon took the halter of the first horse from Zoe.

"Bareback?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not unless you see a saddle for the stealing." Zoe found the next likely horse and, after a moment's coaxing, led it out to where Simon waited. They threw themselves up onto the horses' backs, Zoe conspicuously more graceful than Simon, and steadied their mounts. "I'll go to Jayne. You get back to the ship and get ready for anything."

{Of course}"Dang ran," Simon put his heels in the horses flank and pulled hard on the halter, steering for iSerenity/i.

"The just and virtuous sentence will now be carried out."

A ridiculous reflex made Jayne hold his breath as Deputy Stacey braced his boot against the prop under Jayne's feet. A minute's extra oxygen would only prolong his suffering if the deputies had miscalculated the length of rope needed for a man of his weight. If his neck did not snap immediately, he would have an extra minute to bask in his own death. Still, Jayne held his breath.

iThe quarry lake, with its cliffs and ledges, was strictly forbidden and that was half of its appeal. Jayne stood in his cut-off shorts on a jut of rock some ten yards above the surface of the impenetrably murky water. He glanced nervously back over his shoulder as the older boys continued to deride him. This was it. He had to jump. If he tried to turn back now, his young life would be an endless torment of name-calling and vicious pranks. Jayne's feet moved him toward the edge even as his hands began to shake. The last step took him into the open air. Two seconds later, the water closed over his head and all sound and light left the world./i

Deputy Stacey kicked the support out and Jayne dropped.


	10. Chapter 10

On his perch above the street, Mal wanted to curse aloud, but his breath was supremely occupied. He focused on taking deep breaths into his lungs and releasing them as slowly as possible as he monitored the gallows through his scope. It was one of the core lessons in sniper training - exhaling slows the heart, helping to still the body and steady the hands. He inhaled again as the deputy finishes speaking and stepped behind Jayne. There was only one narrow chance to make this shot. Too early and the hanging would be disrupted, but with Jayne still in the lawmens' custody. A second late and Jayne would be dead. The deputy put his boot on the prop and Mal began to exhale.

Deputy Stacey kicked the support out, Jayne dropped and Mal fired.

The bullet struck the dusty ground several meters behind the gallows, a complete miss. {Motherfucker!}"Gun ni mar!" Mal hissed and forcefully re-cocked the rifle. He had had half an hour to perfect the first shot and it had missed. Now he had to aim and fire in an instant, with the rope shaking as Jayne writhed and convulsed at the end of it. Mal sighted in the four inch by four inch beam that the rope was tied to. It was a larger target and if he could put a tight cluster of rounds into the middle of it, it might weaken under Jayne's weight and break.

Mal fired, the shot hit home, and the beam exploded, bursting into a hail of wooden shards. "Huh."

Jayne fell free to the ground, the noose taut around his neck. Immediately, Zoe burst forth from her place at the edge of the crowd and ran to him. She hauled him to his feet, clawing at the rope as she jammed a shoulder under his armpit. "I can't carry you, Cobb. Move your feet!" Feebly Jayne tried to obey, stumbling as much as walking and threatening to take Zoe down with him every few steps.

The first shot had Deputy Stacey reaching for his weapon and looking for its origin. The second, destructive shot sent both deputies scrambling down the steps, into the thick of the crowd as it pressed forward to see what was happening. Fighting their way through the crush was a losing prospect. By the time they reached the front of the crowd, their prisoner was gone.

Mumbling frantic prayers, Kaylee appeared at Jayne's other side. She was neither tall nor strong enough to help support him, but she tried.

"{Run!} Zou le!" Zoe shouted at her. "Get the engine running."

Kaylee raced to the near-by alley where the mule waited, her lug-soled boots tossing up puffs of dust. Jumping on, she cranked the engine and tore down the street to Zoe and a collapsing Jayne. Kaylee hopped as quickly off to help Zoe lower Jayne onto the wide, flat cargo platform, tucking his long legs up before they both climbed on, and she gunned the mule down a side street.

"You were supposed to stay with the mule," Zoe shouted over the engine. "Where were you?" Zoe turned and struggled with the noose. She felt for a pulse. It was there, almost hidden by the vibrations of the fractious old vehicle, but it felt frighteningly weak.

"I'm sorry...I just..." Kaylee turned down a parallel street, racing to rendezvous with their captain, "I couldn't see him."

"We'll talk about this later, believe it."

Tears stung at Kaylee's eyes as she hazarded a glance over her shoulder at Jayne. His color was bad and he lay perfectly still, save when a jostle of the mule made his vacant face tilt to one side. He was dying, or already dead, she just knew it. So bound was Kaylee with the ashen face behind her that she nearly ran over Mal. She whipped her head around in time to see him jump out of the way. Kaylee gasped as she pounded the brake.

{Goddamn} "Tsao gao! What the hell, Kaylee?!"

"Zoe's already gonna yell at me later."

Mal climbed on, snugging himself between the two women. Three people on the mule made for a very tight fit. It would have been fine fodder for a man's personal time, if not for the hulking gun-hand dying two feet behind him. "How's he doin'?"

"I think he's still alive."

"You think?"

"I think."

Within a few minutes, they had put the center of the settlement behind them as they raced for the remote landing site. For the entire trip, Zoe kept her station, twisted half around to keep one hand on Jayne. Even as the mule pitched and bounced on the rocky ground, he did not stir.

"Do we go after them?" Deputy Lonnie asked his brother.

"I swear to god, Lonnie, if you was any dumber, we'd have to water you. Yes, we got after them! You wanna tell Dad we let him get away?"

"Well, no, but-"

Stacey grabbed Lonnie by one shoulder and shoved him towards the truck.

Simon was prepped and waiting as Zoe and Mal hauled Jayne into the infirmary and on to the examination bed. Mal turned immediately to the intercom panel at the door. **beep** "Wash, how's that jammer holding up?

_"In a word, fritzy, but it should keep us hidden from anything older than a Minear 3.0."_

"{Understood.} Tingdong. Start the launch sequence. We need to de-ass this planet with quickness."

_"She's hot and ready for you, Cap."_**beep**

Jayne's body had barely come to a stop before Simon began scanning him. Automatically assuming her ostensibly mandatory role as nurse, Zoe strode to the main screen on the wall, "He was semi-conscious when we got him down. Pulse is up, resps and O2 are all low and dropping."

"Cerebral hypoxia, possible larygneal fracture and pharyngeal trauma," Simon thought aloud, looking at the portable scanner. "He needs an airway." Simon grabbed a lighted scope from a drawer at the same time Zoe produced the intubation kit from another. "Ai ya," Simon breathed harshly as he examined the tumescent tissue inside Jayne's throat.

"Are you gonna have to trake him?" Mal asked from his vigilant place at the doorway. Kaylee clung to the opposite doorjamb.

"Not if I can avoid it," Simon grabbed the tube from Zoe and positioned it within Jayne's slack mouth. With carefully measured force, Simon fed the tube down Jayne's throat, but the swollen tissues pressed hard against him. "I need cricoid pressure. Zoe, give me your hand." Her hand was hovering over Jayne before Simon could look up to reach for it. He placed her strong fingers on Jayne's adam's apple and pressed, "Back and up. If I can't get him intubated in the next 30 seconds, I'll have to crike him."

"Kaylee, you get up to the bridge and keep that jammer on if you have to hold the wires together with your teeth."

"But, Cap'n-"

"Now!"

With one last pained look at Jayne's still form, Kaylee turned and sprinted for the bridge.

The pressure of Zoe's hand bought Simon the scintilla of space he needed to cautiously coerce the tube down Jayne's throat, deep into his trachea. Zoe handed him the end of the tube from the reserve oxygen stored below the bed, which Simon attached in one fluid movement, perfected by repetition. Air hissed through the tube, raising the plane of Jayne's chest slightly. "Chest expansion," Simon announced. He grabbed his stethoscope from its nonchalant place across the back of his neck and listened to the lung, "Breath sounds good bilaterally."

"Sat's coming up," Zoe declared. In the doorway, Mal and Kaylee began to breathe again too.

"I'll start the high-def scan, to tell us if he needs surgical repair." With Jayne stable, Simon counted heads. "Where's River?"

"I sent her back to you."

"You what?!"

Mal hit the com again. **beep** "Wash, did River come back to the ship on her own?"

"_Is she missing?"_

"That's a no." **beep** Mal could barely get a calloused hand out to stop Simon as he stripped off his gloves and tried to rush from the infirmary. "Where are you going?"

"I've got to find River," Simon said, aghast.

"You've got a patient on the table."

"He's stable."

"Zoe or I can go look for her."

"I have a better chance of finding her."

"What if Jayne takes a turn?"

"Zoe, you got him?"

"Got him."

"Zoe's got him." Simon snatched the com unit from Mal's belt, causing Mal's hand to reflexively go to his gun. "Call me if his pulse ox drops below 85!" Simon yelled back as he raced through the ship.

"Why am I running?" Simon's mind demanded to know as the prairie sun made to scald him. "The mule was sitting right there. I forewent an all-terrain vehicle and am running to town on foot." Arms pumping and feet pounding in three-eight time, two more bubbles of thought burst, "Because I don't know how to drive it and I didn't have the keys," and "{Thank God}Gang zie shen for six years of track." He was a lost cause with a ball in his hand, but Simon could run.

Mal let out a roar as he slowed to a frustrated stop on the cargo ramp, the back of Simon shrinking at a surprising clip.

Kaylee raced down the stairs from the bridge, Wash near behind, "{What's wrong?} Fa sheng shen me shi le?"

"River's bugged out and damn {fool's} shazi's took off after her," Mal gritted out, staring venomously out.

"Alone? By himself?"

"Yes, by himself! Who else is that-" the mule's starting holler severed his lambast. Mal spun around just in time to watch Kaylee speed past.

"Gorram it, am I still captain of this ship?!"

"You'll always be captain of my heart," Wash declared.

"Go be un-funny on the bridge, Wash, we're out of here the second the first one of them comes back."

Embers smoldered in Simon's chest and a fist was clenched in his side, and the town was still damnably far away, as the first real dubiety began to settle on Simon's pounding heart. Suddenly, like a noisy, dirty valkyrie, Kaylee pulled the mule alongside Simon in his ardent run. "Hop on!"

"Does this mean you forgive me?"

"You really want to talk about that now?"

Simon jumped on behind Kaylee, holding her waist as fear of being thrown off and run over proved more powerful than embarrassment or decorum.

If Simon had been honest with Mal, or even himself, he would admit that he did not know where to begin looking for River. She was just one small body in the sprawl of a town, assuming she had even stayed in town. Something inside Simon told him that she had while a seething, protective, brotherly feeling told him to look for Jin to find River. Keeping to alleys and deserted back streets, they meandered through the town as unobtrusively and inconspicuously as possible. Scanning the marketplace and peeping through the windows of shops had proved fruitless. Time was moving faster than they were, with no way to know how long Mal would wait for the last of the lambs to come home. Finally, Simon thought he spied a familiar figure in a cafe. He and Kaylee entered as casually as they could, moving along one wall and scanning for a boy matching Simon's description

"Is that him over there?" Kaylee asked.

Simon fixed his eyes where she pointed and could not stop his jaw as it dropped. "That's not a 'him'." In the corner of his vision, he saw Kaylee cover her mouth with both hands as she gasped. The skinny 'boy' in the out-sized clothed, with black hair cut short up around the ears, stared with wide, chocolate brown eyes to where Jin sat and smiled, making time with a lanky blond girl with a button nose. Simon watched River's fists clench as Jin leaned over and kissed the girl. Eyes shimmering with tears, River turned and hurried out.

"C'mon," Kayle said, dragging Simon by the arm. "We'll pick her up out back. You gotta act like you didn't see any of that."

"She's my sister and she's upset-"

"She just got her heart stomped on and doesn't need you and your {consistently useless} jing-tzahng mei yong-duh tongue right now. Just let me talk to her."

Kaylee pulled the mule up beside River, who dropped out of her run at the sound of their approach. "Hey, honey, I almost didn't recognize you. We need to get back to the ship {on the double} ma shang or Cap'n'll leave without us."

Lips set in a firm line, River only nodded and climbed on between her brother and her friend. They rode back to Serenity in silence.

Life is uncertain. Time is irrelevant. Even the concepts of light and dark become stupifyingly difficult for a brain deprived of oxygen. Jayne heard and saw, or imagined, he could not be sure. Comprehension was completely beyond him. Hands touched his body at some point, faces floated in front of him, then the darkness came up around him again, as if he were in tar, slow, heavy and inescapable. Sometimes sinking, sometimes floating, words found him like water snakes in a primal river.

"What you won't do to avoid work. Enjoy your sopor, 'cuz you're on septic vac til further notice."

"I've known necrotizing faciitis, and you, sir, are no necrotizing faciitis."

"Jayne Cobb, you've been judged and found wanting."

"Oh, that's just mean."

There was quiet cry --wasn't there?- and voices hushed politely. River's whisper sounded close enough that her breath should have been warm on his ear," {You're dead? Let me fix that with some reincarnation magic.}Ni bai sha she le? Rang wo yong shu lai she ni fu huo," before she faded into the murk as well.

An alien individual sat tight to the wall of the bottom step of the rear stairs. Freezing at the top, Mal reached for his gun. Being a three days in the black, however, he did not have it. Irrespective of that, he still had his strength - command presence. "Don't take kindly to stowaways," he warned

"Not stowaway, castaway," the dove-like voice sniffled quietly.

"River?" Cautiously, Mal descended, his eyes adjusting to the dim. Simon and Kaylee had, separately, taken pains to avoid him outside of any interaction inescapably job-related. He had only had report from Wash that River had been recovered, she having kept herself entirely to herself since, which suited him fine. Now he found her sitting alone, staring at nothing in particular, her hair trimmed sharp like a pixie's. Something had definitely happened. Not that he cared. The girl and her brother and his own besotted mechanic had been more than their fair share of trouble. Still, he did cut a pathetic figure, sat there all downcast. He sat on the step below hers. "Who cut your hair?"

"I did, then Inara."

Mal did not relish the idea of River with sharp things in her hand, whether she meant to use them on herself or someone else. "We gonna need a 'no touching scissors' rule around here?"

"It was a razor. Fell out of the Shepherd's bag." It has lain there on the floor of the passenger dorm corridor, a spark of inspiration, a beacon drawing her. It was slightly open, just enough for the blade to glint in the light, parted and tempting like the legs of a lover. River picked it up, holding it with gentle guidance like a cello bow, as it spoke to her. 'I am here,' it said, 'I will help you. Trust in me.'

"So, what's his name?"

The beamish voice yanked River out of her memory. Her head immediately snapped to Mal, 'How did you know?' so plain on her face.

"Can't think of anything else would make a seventeen year old do something so drastic," he smiled beatifically.

"Jin," the pang of adolescent sorrow dominated the syllable.

"Ah well, I wouldn't worry too much on the losing then. Jin's a girl's name anyway."

A grin nearly animated River's mouth, but she trapped it, the effort making a cute pout of her lips, "No, it's not."

"Of course it is. I had a great-aunt Jean."

"That's not the same; homonym."

"What did you call me?"

The grin outfoxed River this time and grew into a full-blown smile. Mal smiled too, to see the girl under all the hardship and sorrow. They sat in silence for a while, listening as the climate control cycled on with a dull chunk and air whispered through the ducts.

"Incendiary round. Nice touch, by the way."

"Even Shepherd "Keep 'Em Guessing" Book couldn't make that shot."

"That was in the plan? You knew I'd miss, but you let me take the shot anyway, and you reckoned I'd shoot for the beam next?"

River shrugged one shoulder.

"Sure'n I don't know what's going on anymore."

"You never did."

Someone was singing when Jayne reached the surface again. "_Oh, you've got green eyes/_

_Oh, you've got blue eyes/_

_Oh, you've got gray eyes/  
And I've never seen anyone quite like you before/_

_No, I've never met anyone quite like you before."_ It was surely no church hymn Jayne had ever heard, so he reasoned that he must still be alive. The next thing he was consciously, and immediately, aware of was the fire in his throat. Yes, he was definitely alive. He rallied the strength to creak open one eye. The infirmary shifted into focus. His gaze landed on River where she sat on the counter bed, looking seraphic with a gold scarf, surely one of Inara's, draping her head. "Ah," she said knowingly, "the sleeper wakes."

Simon appeared above Jayne, pulling his up his eyelids and blinding him with a vindictive sun in the form of a pen-light. "Don't try to talk. You've got a tube down your throat to help you breath. Do you understand?" Jayne's head twitched in the affirmative. Holding up two fingers, like V for victory, Simon asked, "Show me how many fingers you see." Lifting his forearms from the bed, Jayne held up two fingers, one on each hand. Simon smirked, "Prognosis is good."

The ship was largely settled for the night when a noise caught Jayne's ear. From his compulsory place on the bed, Jayne lifted his head to see Zoe slid into the infirmary. She was already dressed to retire, a style in which she would normally not be seen, in a silky kimono that stopped scandalously shy of mid-thigh. She came to stand beside his shoulder, "How are you feeling?"

Jayne wobbled a spread hand. The breathing tube had been removed, which felt rather like vomiting a welding torch, but he still could not speak. A clutch of scrap paper and a pen sat on the counter nearby to facilitate communication. He was prone to breathing troubles and fainting spells and so was shackled by Simon's orders to stay in the infirmary on the monitors.

In atypical tenderness, Zoe's hand came to rest on Jayne's arm. "Good work not dying. The place wouldn't have been the same without you." Jayne looked from Zoe's hand back to her face, at the light in her eyes he simply could not rate. "You say something sexual; I say something violent. You try to see me naked in the shower; I try to break you nose." She picked a piece of fluff from his hair with dexterous fingertips and smiled down at him softly. "I like the system we've got." Moving down to the end of the bed, Zoe trailed her fingers along Jayne's leg, "Actually there's a lot about you I like." She stood poised with her hands on the sash of her kimono. "Now is your chance, Jayne Cobb. After years of chasing, it's time for the kill. All you have to do I say it, say you want me." With that, she threw open her kimono, exposing her creamy bronze glory. Zoe tried not to smirk as Jayne's eyes bulged out of his head. "Don't you want me, Jayne?"

Jayne's mouth opened, but only a gravelly rattle issued forth.

Zoe snapped her kimono closed and tied the sash tightly. "Well, I can't say I'm not a little disappointed. Maybe in the next life. Good night, Jayne."

Jayne grunted and groaned, frantically reaching for his pen, as Zoe turned on her heel and strode out, laughing wickedly.

In the cockpit, Mal's head snapped towards the strange cacophony in his ship. "What in the name of {God} Tien and sonny {Jesus} Yesoo is that?"

"That," Wash could not help but smirk, "if I had to venture a guess, would be my Zoe's sadistic sexy-evil laugh."

"You might have to stop smiling there, chippy."

{Huh?}"Shen me?"

"If you're in here with me, who's she doing sexy-evil laugh for in there?"

Two weeks since taking off from Tiberinus for the final time, there was laughter in the dim evening light of the galley as _Serenity_'s crew gathered together for their supper, though the din was missing a certain baritone. His voice still suffering the effects of the aborted hanging, Jayne was forced to meter his talking, saving his vocal strength for only the choicest snipes and innuendo. Swallowing was difficult from time to time, so due attention had to be paid to thoroughly chewing solid food. They were fair exchanges, Jayne knew, for the price of his life.

Mal took a sip from his mug to keep from choking as he maintained the effort to talk, laugh and eat simultaneously. "I know the womenfolk accuse us of being led around by the {dangly piece of meat} zhandou de yi kuai rou, but damn, Jayne, don't you even get a vote?"

Another wave of laughter crested and Jayne swatted it down with his hand. Everyone quieted a little to listen. Jayne spoke with a gravely hoarseness that wore off a bit more each day, "I ain't tumbled Wash yet."

Tittering and eating simultaneously caught up with Inara too, who coughed around a dainty morsel of bread. Mal patted her back, his hand lingering warmly between her shoulders. All eyes turned to Wash, who sat looking something between horrified and dejected. "You said it was special, you said I was the only one!" Sobbing dramatically, fists over his eyes, Wash turned against his wife's shoulder.

"There, there,{precious} baobei, he said the same thing to me."

Now the crew could hardly speak for want of breath as the hilarity overtook them again. At the other end of the table, River basked in the golden, sparkling euphonia. Each peel of joyous noise was like the ringing of a bell, clear and bold through the mist. Another note joined it in harmony. Next to her, beneath the table, Kaylee reached over tentatively and took Simon's hand. Tentatively too, Simon interlaced his fingers with hers and dared a sidelong glance to see her smile.

Silently, _Serenity_ glided through the vast, black expanses of space, her heart glowing.

Fin

;~',~

Words alone are not do enough to thank that marvelous blaxploitation librarian Adverbia Jones for all her help, especially not my words.

Dedicated to Alan Francis, who is now officially a bigger procrastinator than me.


End file.
